Good job if you have no desire for a life - Heavy Duty Mechanic CN Employee Review

2.0
Jul 6, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Pay is good, especially if you don’t have any certifications. Benefits are decent. Pension plan is unrivalled for now. Share plan is okay. Job itself is not demanding at all.

Cons

Good luck having a life for the next 15-20 years. You will work weekends, you will work nights. You will work holidays, and if the shops go to 8 hour shifts, enjoy working 3pm-11pm with Tuesday Wednesday off. Also get used to the most frustrating work environment. If you have any degree of enthusiasm or work ethic, this job will either beat it out of you or drive you insane. If you enjoy trying to fix a problem while dealing with no training on how to do a job, no tools to actually do the job, and no parts to complete the repair than this is the job for you. If you enjoy working on equipment that hasn’t been washed in 10 years dripping oil and dirt on you while you’re standing in an oil puddle that someone else didn’t clean up, you’ll be right at home. Do you like feeling like management treats you as a number and doesn’t really care about your input? Sign up here.

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CN Response
11mo
Thank you for your feedback and for your hard work. We pride ourselves on providing our team members with great pay and benefits. When we recruit talent to our teams we spend a lot of time going over the realities associated with the railroad operating 24/7/365 days a year, including how being on call can disrupt your family life and important events. We thank you for helping move our business and the economy forward and hope you shared your thoughts during your exit interview.

Explore other reviews about CN

5.0
Apr 2, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Its what you make of it. Good union job with good benefits

Cons

You're always waiting on trains.

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CN Response
2mo
Thank you for your feedback and for your hard work. We pride ourselves on providing our team members with great benefits. We thank you for moving our business and the economy forward. Please share your thoughts with your manager and on your regular Interaction surveys.
4.0
Apr 13, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Pays decently well for first job out of college. My manager and team are very reasonable with expectations placed on new hires. Working after office hours (past 4:30pm) is extremely rare and only expected in emergencies.

Cons

Very slow and/or limited job growth potential. Promotions into middle management are almost purely based on reputation with middle managers who are largely people with previous field experience. This is very disadvantageous to direct-from-college hires like myself and even my current manager.

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CN Response
2mo
Thank you for your feedback and for your hard work. We pride ourselves on providing our team members with great pay. With a 24/7/365 operation CN could not function without its dedicated employees. We thank you for moving our business and the economy forward. Remember to leverage your development plan to have career discussions with your leader and please share your thoughts on your regular Interaction surveys.
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