Heard a couple of CN crew members talking about H. Hunter having a big announcement on 9/24/2008. All they knew it was some kind of announcement. Few speculations but nothing solid. From BNSF-CN merger to Harrison stepping down.
Has any other employee, railfan or others heard anything about an announcement?
From my experience, when you hear crewmembers talking about a “BIG” announcement, there’s never anything. But, I guess we’ll learn today whether I’m right or not.
Operating Ratio improved yet again…this time below 50%…[:P]
Only event listed on the CN website is:
CN’s executive vice-president and chief financial office to address the CIBC World Markets 7th Annual Easter Institutional Investors Conference Sept. 24
MONTREAL, Sept. 19, 2008 - Claude Mongeau, CN’s executive vice-president and chief financial officer, will address the CIBC World Markets 7th Annual Eastern Institutional Investors Conference on Sept. 24 at 2:05 pm ET in Montreal.
Mongeau will discuss CN’s franchise and the company’s business opportunities and prospects.
Interested investors may listen to a live audio webcast of Mongeau’s presentation, and view the slides supporting his remarks, on the CN website, www.cn.ca/investors. A replay of the webcast will be available on the CN website shortly after the presentation ends.
The 9-page slide-type presentation is available to view at:
http://www.cn.ca/documents/Investor-Events/CN-CIBC-Sept-2008-FINAL.pdf
It’s moderately intertesting, but not earth-shaking, as I see it.
We’ll just have to wait and see what happens, I suppose.
On Yahoo! Finance, there’s an article about how a Goldman Sachs analyst on Tuesday added CN to that firm’s recommended “Buy” list, and the nice things he had to say about CN and the industry in general:
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/080923/railroads_ahead_of_the_bell.html?.v=1
But that’s yesterday’s news, not today’s - so we’ll see what happens.
Just got a call from my pa and he was saying the same thing. Big news expected some time after noon today. Hmmmmmm.
The big annoucement is that the CN is closing down the Fond du Lac Yard. When they are going to do it, who knows. I can’t remember the guy that the person named who is going to oversee this, but from what the railroader said that person is the type that will get things done. If it’s going to happen, it’s going to happen type of person.
The crews will be running from Schiller Park to Stevens Point and vice-versa. How long will this last? Once again, who knows. Neenah crew change would make more sense.
All of this is speculation until there’s some kind of proof.
I never understood why they needed a yard in N. Fondy. What work is done there?
Until the first hotbox, drawbar, knuckle, or snow happens.
Maybe I should hurry up and start a crew transport business around Neenah.
As of a few minutes ago, nothing new on CN’s “Media Release” page for the 3rd quarter 2008 at:
http://www.cn.ca/en/media-news-releases-2008-quarter3.htm
So for the moment it appears that the talk and speculation of a Hunter’s “big announcement” yesterday of the sort that was mentioned were just that - talk and speculation.
Maybe just another “scare,” but it really does make sense to have trains run through to either Point or Neenah. I guess the crews out of Fondy are giving management a fit, or so I have heard.
They’ve been giving management fit for years down there. Harrison was down there about a year ago, made some changes with some firings (for delaying trains).
I heard they just added lots of jobs from Point to Schiller, so I think that is as solid as it gets.
I guess they need to make the cluster bigger. Too bad they couldn’t get a passing siding in the Ackerville area… The coke trains seem to not get delivered at Dupy anymore either…
I always wondered why they didn’t connect Rugby siding to the WSOR tracks to have an extra 3+ miles of passing siding.
I haven’t heard a coke train in a few weeks. Then again, I haven’t had my ear glued to the scanner either. IF they aren’t being delivered to Duplainville, then where are they handing them off? I know during the detours, they went up thru Rapids then down to Neenah and onto the wye to go to Manitowoc
Paul
I’m not really at liberty to say… The Ackerville thing is their own doing. There is more than one way out of Milwaukee…
I hear they are buying back NBEC
Sign I saw in the Shops Yard crew building “RIP Shops Yard. 10-5-2008”.
10 additional engineers are being based out of Neenah on the extra board.
Paul
I was there Saturday (10/4) and Sunday (10/5) and they were busy as all heck. A friend who is a Conductor based out of NFDL told me that management routinely tries to scare people in to thinking Shops will close down to get 'em motivated.
Also, Neenah is smaller than FDL and IMO wouldn’t be able to build/set apart trains the way NFDL can.