Bill Gates: Rail Baron?

The founder of Microsoft has taken a decidedly 19th-century turn for his latest investment in CN Rail.

Bill Gates can add another title to his list of superlatives: Canadan's newest railway baron. Canadian National Railway Co. confirmed that Gates is now the company's largest shareholder, owning a 10 per cent stake in the railway, which is valued at $32 billion. Since 2006, Gates has slowly been buying the stock in CN, the country's largest freight railroad and the only one that spans from Nova Scotia to B.C. Based out of Montreal, CN also operates a significant amount of freight traffic in the U.S., but why Gates, the world's second-richest man, has forked over $3.2 billion remains unclear.