A gain from a track sale and other items helped Canadian National Railway (CN) post a higher quarterly profit earlier in the week, offseting the impact of the weak economy, Reuters reported.
The railway remains leery of predicting when the economy will rebound, but said operational changes adopted in recent years were reflected in lower expenses in the quarter and will help even more when freight traffic rebounds.
The railway said it had a net profit of US$342 million in the first quarter, compared with $251.6 million in the same quarter a year earlier.
The profit would have been $244.3 million without one-time items such as a $127 million gain from selling a rail corridor to the Toronto area's transit operator and a tax recovery.
CN, which operates in both Canada and the United States, said revenue in the quarter was $1.5 billion, down from $1.6 billion, as the sagging economy caused car loadings to drop 16 percent. |
