Search by UN number, substance name, or class. Placard class numbers correspond to the TDG Regulations (SOR/2001-286). ERAP = Emergency Response Assistance Plan required.
Every freight car in North America carries a reporting mark (1–4 letters) and car number stencilled on the side. Enter a reporting mark to identify the owner or lessor, fleet type, and what commodities are commonly carried. Car numbers are logged for the community observation record.
Eastbound mixed manifest train observed ~11:30 AM on the CN Dundas Subdivision. Two tank car blocks (AITX, PROX, TLPX) and mixed freight (CEFX, CBFX, GTW). GTW heritage mark suggests cross-border origin via Windsor/Sarnia from Michigan or Ohio.
| Reporting mark | Car number | Owner / lessor | Car type | Likely commodity | Note |
|---|
Wildfire activity intersecting Ontario rail corridors — service suspensions, crew evacuations, and TDG-relevant exposure. New module, launched 15 Jul 2026.
Transportation Safety Board occurrence records filtered to the Dundas Subdivision and expanding nationally.
| Year | Type | DG? | Fatalities | Injuries | Cars derailed | Note |
|---|
Major incidents across Canada that shaped the regulations, tank car standards, and emergency response protocols now in effect on the Dundas Sub and every corridor RailWatch monitors.
| Year | Location | Fatalities | Cars derailed | Note |
|---|
Saw a placard you didn't recognize? Noticed unusual rail traffic? Submit here. Observations are reviewed and added to the public feed. UN numbers are on the orange placard panel below the hazard class diamond.
Structured observations automatically extracted from railfan YouTube channels. Confidence reflects how much data was extractable from the video title, description, and thumbnail. Click any row to open the source video.
| Date | Channel | Location | Train | Direction | Commodity | DG? | Confidence | Title |
|---|
When the same train symbol appears in videos from multiple observers at different locations, RailWatch can infer transit time, speed, and direction of travel. This is the foundation for tracking dangerous goods shipments across the corridor network.
| Symbol | Sighting A | Sighting B | Distance | Transit | Speed | Direction | DG? | Confidence |
|---|
Brockville RailFan titles like "CN Train 368 Eastbound June 15, 2026" contain train symbols. When the same symbol appears in a Bayview Junction video from Trackside Ontario earlier the same day, RailWatch can calculate transit time and average speed.
A consist averaging 65 km/h eastbound from Hamilton to Brockville (207km) would arrive in approximately 3 hours and 10 minutes. If that consist carried tank cars at Bayview, the destination is east of Brockville — Montreal, or interchange to a US carrier at the border.
This is how we answer where products of interest are going.
RailWatch Canada is a public infrastructure intelligence platform tracking dangerous goods movement on Canada's freight rail network. It is a property of Critical TO, the Toronto infrastructure intelligence publication.
The platform exists because of a transparency gap: under Canada's Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act, freight railroads are only required to notify provincial fusion centres of dangerous goods routing — not the communities through which those trains pass. A resident A community observer watching tank cars roll through a CN station has no legitimate path to know what products are being transported, where they are going, or who is receiving them.
RailWatch does not claim to solve that gap. It documents it, contextualizes it, and builds the community observation infrastructure that will become meaningful as transparency improves.
- Transportation Safety Board of Canada — Rail Occurrence Database (1983–present)
- Transport Canada — TDG Schedule 1 Regulations (SOR/2001-286)
- Transport Canada — Weekly Freight Rail Service & Performance Data
- OpenStreetMap — Corridor geometry (ODbL)
- Statistics Canada — Annual Rail Transportation Data
- Community observations (submitted via this platform)
Real-time car positions, cargo manifests, specific shipper/consignee information, and bill of lading data are held by CN and CPKC under commercial confidentiality. Access requires carrier partnership agreements. RailWatch is pursuing these through formal channels and Access to Information requests to Transport Canada.