CN’s eBusiness group enlisted Geomap’s "Geolocation/ Geomarketing» services in order to publish their railroad tracks and stations across North America. In total, 72 000 segments of railroad tracks are published over Google Maps. From a technological standpoint, the project uses state-of-the-art solutions available in web mapping and represents a simple but effective and promising technological orientation in the addition of geospatial components to websites (web mapping).

The web component is composed of a user friendly interface which quickly responds to user interaction. The OpenLayers technology is used to combine CN’s railroad data, published through MapGuide Open Source, with Google Maps base maps. By using MapGuide Open Source to publish CN owned layers of information, it is possible to reproject the data to overlay it with Google Maps in a simple user friendly web interface.

The application also uses the Google API for specified features such as shortest routes and the storage of data is done with a MySQL database. Therefore, this simple and effective site is totally based on an open source architecture.

It is possible to view the result of this project at: http://cnebusiness.geomapguide.ca

About Canadian National (CN)
CN is a transportation company that offers integrated transportation services: rail, intermodal, trucking, freight forwarding, warehousing and distribution. The CN is classified amongst the fifty biggest companies in Canada, according to LES AFFAIRES. A rich history and a bright future.