CN is cutting freight service on former BC Rail Prince George, Lillooet, and Squamish Subdivisions to one train daily. All other traffic is being rerouted via CN trackage to Jasper, AB and then to Vancouver. Just a matter of time until the Prince George, Lillooet, and Squamish Subs are spun off to a short line or abandoned.
How many carloads does this subdivision see a day?
That trackage won’t likely be abandoned anytime soon, as the Rockey Mountaineer people are inking contracts to run their passenger service on that line…
There is no doubt in my mind, however, that the trackage will never see the kind of volume under CN than it did with BC Rail.
…of course the worst part about it all is the layoffs.
CN - they are like the UP of Canada.
How can all these job cuts possibly be the best thing for the Province?
Thank You,
Gordon Campbell.
It seems that the government agency that oversees railway mergers in Canada(name of agency,?)is as clueless as the USA’s State Transportation Board.
The Federal Competition Board of Canada approved the merger (idiots).
There have already been numerous complaints that mills and industries up North are not getting the cars that they are requesting, nor are they getting the reasons for why the cars are not arriving.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll stand by it, the CN takover of BC Rail is going to be excellent for the trucking business up North. [xx(]
For what it’s worth, I had advised the BC Transportation honcho to take a giant leap forward and make the BCR an open access line, the first in North America. The province would have continuted to own the right of way, but all connecting railroads would have been able to access the property. The idea was just a bit too intimidating to be seriously considered. The unanswered question is if the shippers affected are better off or worse off than if the open access experiment had been tried, both as opposed to CN’s takeover or if the property had been left as a provincially run railroad. Perhaps an opportunity lost?
That could have been an excellent experiment!!
A definate opportunity lost!
Damn, they could have run the entire right-of-way just like they are running the Port Subdivision at Roberts Bank now…
Wow, that thought never even occured to me… what a bummer.
Don’t know how an Open Access desgnation would have affected job security compared with pre- and post-CN takeover. None of the OA models I’ve studied have ever addressed that concern. Only presumption I came up with is IF open access resulted in increased rail traffic, by default rail employment would correspond.