CN’s new training campus in Transcona opened on Tuesday, September 9, 2014. (TWITTER)
CN has opened a new 100,000-square-foot facility in Winnipeg to offer training opportunities for conductors and car mechanics, to track supervisors and signal maintainers.
The $35 million Transcona area campus is capable of hosting more than 350 CN students from across Canada every week with hands-on training for all key railway jobs.
“The opening of this state-of-the-art training centre is a cornerstone in CN’s workforce renewal, which this year will see the hiring of more than 3,500 employees across our North American network,” said Claude Mongeau, CN president and CEO.
Mongeau said Winnipeg is the hub of CN’s transcontinental network, in which the railway’s east-west, transcontinental traffic and north-south cross border traffic are funnel through the city.
Transcona has been home to CN’s mechanical shop for more than a century and will enhance railroader training programs.
Employees will receive hands-on training in indoor learning laboratories with equipment such as locomotive simulators and dispatcher stations. Outdoor labs with dedicated rolling stock and other equipment for field training will also be a key focus.
A second centralized training facility will open next month for United States employees adjacent to its Woodcrest Mechanical Shop in the Chicago suburb of Homewood, Illinois.
