Does anyone know which sections of double track that were ripped up by HH still remain as single track?
I think they all are still single track, Bickerdike East to Bickerdike West, Devona to Henry House on the Edson Sub. Fitzwilliam to Grant Brook on the Albreda Sub and London to Sarnia in Ontario
I would guess it was about at that same time that the GTW was single tracked on the US side of the border.
Is this not low hanging fruit that CN could re-double to solve part of its capacity problems or is CN too hung up on preserving HH’s legacy? Since the section between Edmonton and Portage la Prairie had little double track before I understand that the priority would be east of Edmonton rather than in the mountains.
You must remember there are legal issues and property issues that have to be addressed before they can just drop another track down.
I am sure that Transport Canada would over rule Parks Canada if CN were to relay the rail on the sections that were previously ripped up. I think it is more of a matter that CN still has other roadbeds completed in other areas that have less double track and that they don’t want the publicity resulting from investors and the public knowing that the track should not have been ripped out by HH in the first place. In the prairies there are at least alternate routes such as the north line unlike the route from between Yellowhead Pass and Edmonton.
While it is possible Transport Canada could over rule Parks Canada, since I imagine CN still owns sufficient right of way, it is always better to come to an amicable agreement with your major neighbour. Easy vehicle access to much of the route requires use of Parks infrastructure.
There’s not a lot of detail here, but have you seen this?
It’s a part of this overall coverage of projects (and other stuff):
https://www.bing.com/news/search?q=CN+Railroad&qpvt=cn+railroad&FORM=EWRE
If you looked at the amount of CN’s subdivisions that are double-tracked between Vancouver (Surrey’s Thornton Yard) and Winnipeg, including sections of double-track along with all sidings, it is currently less than 50% (737.18 miles out of 1,541.20 miles). Here is the breakdown based on what I had calculated:
Yale Sub: 90.7% (includes directional running with CP)
Ashcroft Sub: 68.4% (includes directional running with CP)
Clearwater Sub: 38.9%
Albreda Sub: 61.3% (includes portion that is Red Pass Sub since line is for westbound traffic north of Valemont)
Edson Sub: 50.8% (will increase to over 58% by end of year due to double-tracking projects)
Wainwright Sub: 30.0% (will increase to over 32% due to additional double-track)
Watrous: 33.4% (will increase to over 43% due to additional double-track)
Rivers: 46.0% (will increase to over 50% due to additional double-track)
Considering traffic is excess of 100 million tons per year between the points and growing substantially due to Prince Rupert, 47.8% of the lines being double-tracked is not very much. It’s surprising that it took a while to make the Edson Sub more than 50% double-track considering that is CN’s busiest mainline of them all.
CN just had an earnings call and some interesting things from the transcript.
22 Capital projects planned this year, 2 already completed, does anyone know what they are?
CN has got 63 new locos this year, 52 more by the end of June.
The 1st question asked was by Chris Wetherbee from Citigroup was about OR.
Turan Quettawalla from Scotia Bank asked about CapEx, JJ said work done in yards in Edmonton and Winnipeg last year helped alot. CN was the best in the industry in volume growth in the 1st quarter.
Seldon Clarke asked about OR and PSR. JJ said CN is not a one trick pony of OR and asked where is the floor and made quite a few comments on this. Seldon pressed on about OR and I liked JJ’s answer saying “we’re not going to get drawn into the PSR discussion and how low can you go in the limbo contest. We’ll leave that for the others.”
RailsMBSK reported today 75 conductors have been laid off in Winnipeg.
Let’s hold our breath on these projects being completed. Mike Cory said they weren’t going to make the mistake of abandoning the programs if traffic drops. Let’s see if that holds true.
Traffic is DOWN.
They are dumping rock on the Sprague Sub right now which is great to see. There are still no survey marks for that possible expansion between Devlin and Fort Frances, so I think it may not be happening, at least this year.
36 more conductors to the retention board today in Winnipeg and I would imagine those 36 will go into layoff next week if traffic doesn’t pick up.
Seeing numbers from other terminals is Western Canada shows that they’re again going to lose A LOT of guys if traffic doesn’t come back.
They are hard at work on the double-tracking projects in Alberta. Brush clearing and grading work has been ongoing for some time already, and materials like welded rail, ties and prefab 45 mph turnouts are arriving.
Yard work around Edmonton (Walker and Scotford) is still happening too. They ripped out all the old hump switches at Walker this winter and spring, but no one seems to know now if the master plan is to re-open the hump, or just make the old bowl tracks double-ended again (most have been stubs since the hump closed in 2011).
Lots of layoffs happening around here too, but I haven’t counted the exact numbers.
Is traffic, other than oil traffic down in the current quarter or is the system more robust now that winter is finished and hence requiring fewer crews?
Responding to the williamsb post of Wednesday, May 01, 2019 at 8:09 PM:
Thanks for sharing that information from the earnings call.
You may be interested to know that CN’s OR was already down to 80% in 1996 = post-privatization. That was long before EHH came onto the scene - his reputation on that point is mostly a myth. See the first post in this thread:
http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/t/220120.aspx
- PDN.
Paul, it is the earnings call transcript on CN’s web page. That last quote was about page 13 maybe 12.
Paul, this is copied from Seeking Alpha P.12 & 13.
Seldon Clarke
Thanks very much, and just getting back to the margins for a second with everything going on across the industry in regards to PSR. So this is like the floor for OR has been lowered at all from the high 50 level, high 50s level you guys have previously talked about. And if so, do you think CN can return to being the industry leader there?
JJ Ruest
Well, where’s the floor, it all depends how much risk you want to take the business. So one can have the lower floor and then take the risk of not being able to meet demand on being able to respond the
Thanks for finding and sharing that - very informative.
You may want to see the discussion on this thread -
News Wire: CN reports improved financial results as volume and revenue rise
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PDN.
SD70Dude? or anyone, Are they currently doing the 5 miles between the bridges at Entrance? Are they working on Leaman to Niton? Is that the correct spot?
Any good places to get pictures of this in these 2 spots? I plan to be through there at the end of August. Thanks for any help.
Does anyone know the status of each of the 2019 construction projects. Has CN slowed down their construction pace with the decline in traffic?