CN officially opened its new employee training centre in Winnipeg. The 100,000-square-foot facility is currently hosting 350-plus CN students from across Canada every week, with hands-on training for all key railway jobs. Claude Mongeau, CN President and Chief Executive Officer, said: “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.
“Our training campus in Winnipeg’s Transcona neighbourhood – home to a major CN mechanical shop for more than a century — will enhance our railroader training programs, and help us instill a strong safety culture in our new hires and reinforce it among current employees who are learning new skills or upgrading existing ones. “The new Winnipeg training centre is also a symbol of the key role that Winnipeg and Manitoba play in CN’s network. Winnipeg is the hub of our transcontinental network. All of CN’s east-west, transcontinental traffic and our north-south cross border traffic are funneled through the city.”
The new centre will offer courses for jobs ranging from conductor to car mechanic, and from track supervisor to signal maintainer. 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.
CN has invested C$35 million in the Winnipeg training campus. It will formally open a second centralized training facility next month for United States employees adjacent to its Woodcrest Mechanical Shop in the Chicago suburb of Homewood, Ill.