Board of Health (Hamilton) approves Electrification of Canada National Railway’s Stuart Street Yard 9-0
Council considered a motion on electrification of Canadian National Railway’s Stuart Street Yard.
Published Aug 7, 2026 · updated Oct 19, 2026
Approximate location — matched to the street named in the record, not an exact address.
The motion item Electrification of Canadian National Railway’s Stuart Street Yard was listed under Motions.
The motion, as recorded in the minutes:
even as countries around the world investment in rail electrification, like India and Russia, with electrification of 83% and 52% of their rail networks, respectively; WHEREAS, from 1923 to the early 1930s, when publicly owned as a Crown Corporation, CN Rail operated an electrified subsidiary (Canadian National Electric Railway) and operated fully electric Z4A locomotives; WHEREAS, CN Rail is now owned by American investment firms, including billionaire Bill Gates, with over $9 billion in profit (2024), making it clear that the only thing stopping electrification is government regulation; and WHEREAS, section 447.1 of the Municipal Act allows the municipality to apply to the Superior Court of Justice to close any premises which are proven to be a nuisance to the public. THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED: (a) That the Chair of the Board of Health, in consultation with Public Health staff, request in writing that the relevant Ministers in the Provincial and Federal Governments, and any related governmental agencies, crown corporations, or subsidiaries, take all necessary regulatory action to compel Canadian National Railway to electrify its rail networks, beginning with shunting yards that are in proximity to residential dwellings, including the Stuart Street Yard; and (b) That Public Health report back on the potential to install air quality and wind direction monitors in order to collect a baseline of pollution data and build an open online portal so residents could access the data, including: (i) associated costs; Board of Health August 24, 2026 Minutes BOH 26-006 Page 6 of 7 (ii) the effectiveness of such monitoring; and (iii) any nearby existing monitors in place by other agencies and levels of government.Every figure above comes from the official minutes and the recorded vote they contain. The roll call shows how each member voted.
How this report was made: a language model drafted it from 1 claims extracted verbatim from the meeting’s own documents, and a second model checked every sentence against those claims. Nothing outside the cited documents reaches this page. The vote record above is parsed directly from the minutes and is not drafted.