Who are the navvies who work upon the railway today?

“We are the navvies who work upon the railway,” sang Gordon Lightfoot on New Year’s Day 1967, in his song the Canadian Railway Trilogy, which was written to mark Canada’s Centennial celebrations. The song paid tribute to those who built the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1885.

A navvy is a 19th-century term used to describe a labourer employed in excavating or constructing roads, canals or railways.

Unlike those who toiled upon the railway 140 years ago, a small share of the 34,817 Canadians working in the railway industry in 2023 would be deemed “navvies,” and their rates of pay are substantially higher than the dollar-a-day mentioned in Lightfoot’s song.

Just over one in five railway employees work on rail maintenance

Just over one in five (22.7%) people working in the railway industry in 2023 were employed in railway maintenance, the modern-day equivalent of the navvies of yesteryear.

Railways reported 7,905 employees working on road maintenance in 2023, up 206 employees from a year earlier but 4.7% below pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels of 2019. In 1986, just under 20,000 Canadians were employed in railroad maintenance.

These workers were mostly involved in maintaining existing tracks rather than laying down new ones. Indeed, the length of track in Canada has been relatively stable in recent years with the total line owned at 49,408 kilometres in 2023.

Railway maintenance jobs pay above the national average

Railway workers employed in railway maintenance made an hourly wage above the national average of $29.68 in 2023, well above the dollar a day paid in 1885.

Among mainline rail companies, labourers, including building attendants and coach cleaners made $35.60 an hour, while craftsmen, tradesmen, lead hands, service workers and helpers made $41.80 an hour.

Modern day navvies building tracks in cities rather than over mountains and muskeg

The last decade has seen the largest boom in railway building in terms of investment in memory. Unlike 1885, most of these modern-day railway tracks are not being laid over mountains or muskeg to carry freight, but rather are being laid in large cities as part of urban transit projects to carry people.

While this work on railway building in cities is not covered by our railways survey, we do track this type of railway investment through our Infrastructure Economic Account.

Just over $10.6 billion of railway lines were laid in 2024, up 1.8% from a year earlier, over double what was spent a decade earlier and over 10 times more than was spent in 2000.

Almost half of total railway line construction occurred in Ontario ($5.1 billion) in 2024, followed by British Columbia ($2.2 billion) and Quebec ($1.8 billion).

While employees working as modern day urban “navvies” are not classified as railway workers and are therefore not included in our annual railway survey, we do count them in our infrastructure survey.

Nationally, 63,100 employees were associated with these mostly urban passenger railway projects in 2024.

All aboard for more train and transportation data

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