CN fights most federal rail-safety fines and usually loses

Canadian National Railway has asked a federal tribunal to review 68 of the 79 rail-safety penalties Transport Canada has issued it since 2015, or 86 per cent, according to the department’s own public list. A Canada News Media review of tribunal and court rulings found CN’s challenges usually fail: in 11 of the 13 cases with a published final outcome, the violation was upheld.

The department’s list does not reflect those results. At least nine CN penalties that the Transportation Appeal Tribunal of Canada (TATC) or the Federal Court decided between June 2023 and April 2026 are still posted as “The company has requested a review.” Another 59 CN penalties, worth $6.22 million and issued since October 2020, are listed as under review with no published decision.

CN did not respond to detailed questions sent Oct. 26 by the Oct. 28 deadline.

Transport Canada posts every administrative monetary penalty it issues under the Railway Safety Act. As of Oct. 23, the list held 163 penalties totalling $14.70 million, dating back to 2015. CN, the country’s largest railway, accounts for 79 of them (48.5 per cent) and $7.57 million (51.5 per cent).

Transport Canada can fine a corporation up to $250,000 per violation. CN’s penalties cover track that failed inspection standards, trains that passed stop signals, cars left unsecured in yards, and 14 cases, worth $1.47 million, under the Grade Crossings Regulations, mostly for trains or equipment blocking public crossings. Ten of those 14 were in Quebec.

Any company can ask the tribunal to review a penalty, and CN does so far more often than its peers, records show. The list shows CN requesting a review in 86 per cent of its cases. Canadian Pacific Railway, now part of CPKC, did so in 64 per cent (27 of 42). Every other company on the list combined did so in 27 per cent (9 of 34). The list shows CN as having paid six penalties, totalling $356,700.

The tribunal’s published decisions show how long those reviews can take.

On Oct. 25, 2018, a CN movement passed a stop signal on the Edson Subdivision near Edmonton, a breach of Rule 439 of the Canadian Rail Operating Rules. Transport Canada issued a $58,666.08 penalty in 2019. A tribunal member dismissed it in 2022 (2022 TATCE 29). An appeal panel reinstated it in March 2024 (2024 TATCE 6). CN then asked the Federal Court to set that ruling aside, and the court dismissed the application on Nov. 4, 2025 (2025 FC 1776).

That was one of six judicial reviews of tribunal rulings CN has filed in Federal Court since 2020, the court’s database shows. CN won the first, in 2020. It lost the other five, in 2024 and 2025, and in four of them the court ordered CN to pay the government $4,000 in costs.

Across the 13 CN notices with a final published outcome, the original penalties totalled $995,293. The tribunal dismissed two notices outright, including a $185,415 penalty over CN’s removal of a freight-car inspection location near Shawinigan, Que. It upheld the other 11, reducing three and increasing one. In the 11 upheld cases, 88 per cent of the money assessed stood.

Transport Canada’s list is the only public, consolidated record of rail-safety penalties. When Canada News Media checked it again on Oct. 28, it still described as pending the Shawinigan-area penalty, which the tribunal dismissed in 2022, a decision its appeal panel confirmed in June 2024. It also still listed as pending an $81,249 penalty for cars left unsecured at Senneterre Yard in Quebec, which the tribunal upheld on April 13, 2026, while reducing it to $66,666, and the Edson stop-signal penalty, which the Federal Court finalized last November.

In all, nine decided CN entries worth $706,127 still read “requested a review.” The oldest CN entry with no published decision is a $168,416 penalty from October 2020 for blocking a crossing near Chambord, Que.; the tribunal ruled in 2022 on what evidence it could hear, but the database holds no final decision. The tribunal’s page of decisions issued but not yet published lists no CN cases.

“No published decision” does not necessarily mean a case is still open. A penalty can be withdrawn or settled. Canada News Media asked Transport Canada how many CN files are actually before the tribunal, why its list has not been updated and how much of the $7.57 million has been collected.

Transport Canada did not respond to questions sent Oct. 26 by the Oct. 28 deadline.

The Transportation Appeal Tribunal of Canada did not respond by the Oct. 28 deadline to factual questions sent Oct. 26 about its caseload of CN files and its average time to a decision in rail cases.

CN’s safety penalties sit alongside a separate federal record. Environment and Climate Change Canada’s Environmental Offenders Registry lists four CN convictions with fines totalling $14.1 million. They include $8 million in July 2024 after CN pleaded guilty to two Fisheries Act offences over 2015 derailments near Gladwick and Gogama, Ont., which released about 3.6 million litres of crude oil, and $2.5 million in 2021 for an offence between Terrace and Prince Rupert, B.C.

Canada News Media has previously reported on Transport Canada’s role after a train derailment northeast of Montreal and on the 2024 labour dispute that threatened a national rail shutdown.

CN runs the largest rail network in the country, so it would be expected to draw more inspections and more penalties than smaller lines. That is why this analysis compares review rates rather than raw counts. Asking for a review is a legal right, a request for review is not an admission of anything, and the tribunal has sided with CN in some cases. Forty-six of CN’s 79 penalties were issued by Transport Canada’s Quebec region, which may reflect regional enforcement practice. The outdated entries may reflect a website maintenance lag rather than a policy.

What the records do show is that most of CN’s penalties stay in limbo for years, that CN’s challenges have mostly failed once decided, and that the public record Ottawa keeps on them does not say so.

How we did this. We saved all seven pages of Transport Canada’s public railway penalty list on Oct. 23, 2026, and analyzed all 163 entries by company and by the status the department shows. We downloaded the list again on Oct. 28 and found the same 163 entries with the same statuses. We then searched the Transportation Appeal Tribunal of Canada’s decisions database for every ruling naming CN (27) and the Federal Court’s database for CN’s judicial reviews of those rulings (six). We matched each ruling to a penalty by amount, location and rule. We also exported Environment and Climate Change Canada’s full Environmental Offenders Registry (290 records). The list covers only penalties under the Railway Safety Act since April 1, 2015; criminal prosecutions are not included.

Sources: Transport Canada railway administrative monetary penalties list; TATC decisions database, including 2024 TATCE 6, 2026 TATCE 19 and 2024 TATCE 22; TATC decisions not yet published; Federal Court rulings 2025 FC 1776 and 2020 FC 1119; Transport Canada rail safety FAQ; Environmental Offenders Registry; ECCC news release, July 2024.