[3] After a failed proxy battle, in 2001 WCTC and the former Illinois Central Railroad were purchased by Canadian National Railway, and merged into their United States holdings.

In 1997, Burkhardt, while CEO and president of Wisconsin Central Transportation Company, was appointed by the New Zealand government as its honorary consul to Chicago.

[1] As part of Rail World operations:[1] A derailment at Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, Canada of a runaway Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway oil train on July 6, 2013 killed forty-seven of the townfolk and incinerated much of the downtown.

Under Burkhardt's ownership and control over the previous decade, MM&A recorded an accident rate higher than rest of the US rail fleet, according to data from the Federal Railroad Administration.

"[7] Following the Lac-Mégantic disaster Burkhardt initially blamed the Nantes, Quebec fire brigade for shutting down the unattended locomotive to extinguish an engine fire,[8] then he announced that the railway had suspended Tom Harding, the engineer and only crew-member of the runaway train, for improperly setting the handbrakes on the rail cars before retiring for the night to a local motel.

[12] The Canadian Transportation Agency, a quasi-judicial administrative court, had approved MM&A’s insurance coverage in 2002, and the railway had renewed its Certificate of Fitness, which is the license to operate with the CTA, annually since then.