On November 7, 1885, the ceremonial last spike was driven at Craigellachie, in the interior of British Columbia, marking the completion of Canada’s transcontinental railway. While the railway plays a lessor role in Canada’s transportation chain today compared with 140 years ago, it remains a major contributor to the economy overall and is an important source of employment in railway towns across the country.
Trains trail trucking in the transportation sector today
Today, more of Canada’s trade flows by truck rather than by train, but rail remains a key component in the transportation chain, especially for large bulk commodities like wheat, coal and iron ore.
In 2021, the most recent year for which comparable data are available, the total output of Canada’s for-hire transportation sector reached $201.8 billion, accounting for 4.0% or $95 billion of gross domestic product. Among the four main modes of for-hire transportation (truck, rail, air and water), rail ranked second in output in 2021, generating $16.6 billion in economic activity.
Nevertheless, the economic contribution of rail paled in comparison with trucking, which generated $75.9 billion in output in. For-hire air activity generated $13.1 billion in economic activity and water generated $4.3 billion.
In the years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, the economic output of rail transportation ranked third, trailing air transportation by a wide margin. In 2019, for example, rail transportation generated $17.0 billion in economic activity, compared with $29.4 billion for air transportation.
In 2023, operating revenues for the Canadian rail transportation industry rose 2.5% year over year to reach $20.9 billion. This marked a third consecutive year of growth.
Tracking the importance of trains through trade
Another way of looking at the importance of rail in Canada today is through a trade lens. In August 2025 alone, over $5.6 billion in goods were imported to Canada by rail, while $6.7 billion in goods were exported.
In terms of dollar value, the most important trade goods moved by train in August (southbound and northbound) included motor vehicles and parts; industrial chemical, plastic and rubber products; metal and non-metallic mineral products, as well as forestry products and building and packaging materials.
Train towns big and small
Back when the transcontinental railway was first built, depots, or “divisional points,” were established at regular intervals along the line to service trains with water and coal, load and unload cargo and passengers and, in bigger depots, repair trains if needed. Some of these divisional points, established over a century ago, have grown into large cities such as Edmonton and Calgary. Indeed, Edmonton and Calgary remain important hubs, employing a combined total of nearly 5,000 railway workers in 2021.
After Toronto, the smaller urban centres of Oshawa (615 employees) and Greater Sudbury (540) were the largest railway towns in Ontario.
The biggest railway towns in Atlantic Canada were the port cities of Saint John (205 employees), Moncton (180) and Halifax (125).
Just under half of the 5,565 railway employees in British Columbia at the time of the 2021 Census were based out of the ports of Vancouver (1,875 employees) and Prince George (630).
Perhaps fittingly, one of Canada’s biggest railway towns in terms of employees to population size is Kamloops, in the interior of British Columbia, not far from where the last spike was driven 140 years ago. In 2021, 890 residents of Kamloops, or almost 1% of the population of the city, were railway employees.
Further reading
This is the third in a three-part series on railways in Canada to mark the 140th anniversary of the completion of the transcontinental railway in 1885.
The first part of this series, “Who are the navvies who work upon the railway today?,” was released on July 22, 2025.
The second part, “Taking stock of Canada’s railway rolling stock and a salute to those who operate and maintain them,” came out on October 22.
Contact information
For more information, contact the Statistical Information Service (toll-free 1-800-263-1136; 514-283-8300; infostats@statcan.gc.ca) or Media Relations (statcan.mediahotline-ligneinfomedias.statcan@statcan.gc.ca).