What is a cash flow waterfall?

A cash flow waterfall is a bar chart that walks from operating cash flow through capital expenditure to free cash flow, then shows how the remaining cash is allocated — acquisitions, buybacks, dividends, debt, and other financing — ending at the net change in cash. Each step is colour-coded: green bars add to the running total, red bars subtract.

How does Canadian National Railway (CNI) spend its free cash flow?

For TTM through Q1 2026, Canadian National Railway generated 7.15B CAD of operating cash flow and 3.57B CAD of free cash flow — a free cash flow margin of 50% of operating cash flow. The waterfall breaks down how the remaining cash was allocated across investing and financing activities.

How much did Canadian National Railway (CNI) return via buybacks and dividends?

The waterfall shows buybacks (share repurchases) and dividends paid as separate steps in the financing section. Together these represent Canadian National Railway's shareholder returns for TTM through Q1 2026. You can compare these against free cash flow to assess the capital-return payout ratio.

Canadian National Railway (CNI) Cash Flow Waterfall

Operating CF

7.15B CAD

Capex

-3.58B CAD

Free Cash Flow

3.57B CAD

FCF Margin

+50.0%

Cash flow waterfall for Canadian National Railway (CNI) — TTM through Q1 2026

Free cash flow: 3.57B CAD

Cash flow breakdown for Canadian National Railway (CNI) — TTM through Q1 2026

Line item	Amount	Running total
Operating Cash Flow	7.15B CAD	7.15B CAD
Capital Expenditure	-3.58B CAD	3.57B CAD
Free Cash Flow	3.57B CAD	3.57B CAD
Other Investing	38.2M CAD	3.61B CAD
Share Buybacks	-2.85B CAD	760M CAD
Dividends Paid	-2.21B CAD	-1.45B CAD
Net Debt Change	1.82B CAD	368M CAD
Other Financing & FX	-27.5M CAD	341M CAD
Net Cash Increase	341M CAD	341M CAD

Operating Cash Flow7.15B CAD
Capital Expenditure-3.58B CAD
Free Cash Flow3.57B CAD
Other Investing38.2M CAD
Share Buybacks-2.85B CAD
Dividends Paid-2.21B CAD
Net Debt Change1.82B CAD
Other Financing & FX-27.5M CAD
Net Cash Increase341M CAD

Want to see what drove the FCF change?Free Cash Flow Bridge

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