CN renews support for University of Illinois Railroad Engineering Program

The University of Illinois said from Canadian National Railway Company made a new $325,000 donation to the university's Railroad Engineering Program, a gift that renews the company's generous commitment to railroad engineering education.

"This gift allows us to
continue and extend our success in developing courses, conducting research, and
teaching students about rail transport and engineering," said Professor
Christopher Barkan, the director of the Railroad Engineering Program. "This
gift also provides key funding for our railroad engineering lecturer position
which has greatly expanded our unique ability to prepare our students for careers
in the railroad industry."

CN has now donated more
than $1 million since 2002 in support of the Railroad Engineering Program, the
largest in North America and headquartered in the university’s top-ranked
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

"We are proud that our
support of the Railroad Engineering Program helps today’s students become
tomorrow’s railroaders," said Jim Vena, CN senior vice president, Southern
Region. "The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign provides its engineering
students with a strong knowledge of railroading evident in the talented
graduates and interns we have hired from this program in recent years."

In 2002, CN’s initial gift
of $400,000 was matched by the university and endowed an ongoing fellowship
supporting graduate students’ research and education in rail engineering. In
2006, a $300,000 gift helped establish the lecturer position.

Railroad engineering
Lecturer J. Riley Edwards, a member of the CEE faculty since 2007, is the
current holder of the CN-sponsored lectureship. Today, Edwards teaches a
capstone design course on railroad project planning and construction
management. He has research interests in the areas of railroad civil
engineering, railroad applications of machine vision, and railroad
infrastructure maintenance and management planning,

Through the CN Stronger
Communities Fund, CN supports health and safety programs for young people,
transportation education, the CN Railroaders in the Community employee
volunteer grant program and United Way. CN is committed to contributing one
percent of pre-tax profit to registered, non-profit organizations in communities
where its employees work and where it operates.