I’m curious about what would happen if the Canadian Pacific mainline got cut off for any reason due to avalances or the such. Would they be able to run any frieghts on the Canadian National line through Jasper?
That would depend on whatever capacity issues CN had on their line. There is certainly no technological reason why it couldn’t be done.
But Canada is a big country. Running up from Calgary to Edmonton, over to Jasper, AB, then down through Kamloops, BC to Vancouver, would not be unlike going from Toronto to Chicago by way of Sudbury and Thunder Bay, ON, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Milwaukee. I bet the mileage ratios wouldn’t be all that different.
Bruce
If you’re talking about an avalanche hitting CP’s primary main line, if it happened in the Rockies instead of in the Selkirks, CP would have the option of detouring traffic over its southern main line via Crowsnest Pass, Fort Steele, and Golden.
I suspect they would not reroute much. The first issue is whether or not they have a detour agreement. I suspect they do, most railroads have them and there is an industry standard agreement.
The binding constraint will most likely be CN pilot crews. There is no reason to assume that CN is carrying enough crewmen to accommdate the unlikely event of a sustained CP detour. You can be sure CN will protect its own traffic before worrying about CP.
The crew constraints are not peculiar to this sitaution, you could insert any two carriers and the fundamental situation is the same. The owning line will protect its own traffic first.
Mac