Throughout various discussions on the web and through Trains Magazine are how BNSF and UP are extensively double-tracking transcontinental routes around their system. Currently, there is a forum on BNSF’s double-tracking of their Transcon from Chicago to Los Angeles along with the one from Chicago to the Pacific Northwest. With UP, a forum also discusses their Sunset Route between El Paso and Los Angeles. However, no one ever discusses CN double-tracking their mainline, particularly from Winnipeg to Taverna/Valemount. Based on what I have read and determined, there may be strong reason to do so now
Over the course of the past few months, traffic growth for the Canadian National Railway has been so significant, that the railroad is having difficulty moving the traffic from various points to anywhere else (most growth has occurred in Western Canada). The growth in traffic has been attributed to a number of factors:
Higher movement of grain, of which CN is desperately trying accommodate
Higher intermodal volumes, thanks to expansion at Prince Rupert and substantial growth at Vancouver
Higher sand volumes, mainly due to operations in Grande Prairie, AB
Higher coal volumes, mainly due to re-opening of mines near Tumbler Ridge, BC and higher demand across the Pacific
Higher potash volumes, mainly due to increase in growth from Asia
Last year in the March 2018 Trains Magazine article about CN Rail, it mentioned how CN “was a touch behind traffic growth” (Page 58). Clearly it was not because the railroad is now suffering terrible dwell times in major yards and intermodal terminals, causing many of their customers to complain and investor confidence to fall. Recently, the stock price was at a 52 week low on the markets. The railroad is also short on cars, locomotives, mainline capacity, and human capital. Most recently, CN has leased a number of units to accommodate this growt
Regarding oil, there is a proposed twining of an existing pipeline between the Edmonton area and Vancouver, but it has generated strong opposition. Why would double tracking CN between those points for increased oil transport, generate any less opposition?
The oil is lesser factor of interest to CN compared to the intermodal, grain, and forest products growth when it comes to double-tracking towards the west. Also, the oil traffic that is more likely to contribute to a greater increase of traffic would be heading east from Edmonton rather than west to Vancouver towards the other side of Canada and the Gulf Coast. Oil is tough commodity to forecast for railroads since there is so much volatility in the markets and the threat (to the railroads) of building pipelines. I don’t believe CN would double-track a mainline based solely oil. It would have to be a variety of factors.
CN doesn’t really like to spend money. They are all about squeezing their infrastructure as tight as they can. That’s their business model.
They’ll do little tidbits of extra capacity here and there but I highly doubt you’ll see a truly twinned mainline. You’ll have your pinch points at bridges and valleys remaining single of course, but I just can’t see CN investing that much money into the mainline.
The biggest thing CN needs to work on in my opinion is their fluidity and capacity in their major terminals. A lot of the congestion and service issues are wholy the cause of terminals being major pinch points.
Would it be a great investment and vote of confidence in both the Company’s and the Country’s futures? Yes!
Does CN have enough money to do it? Yes!
So will it happen? Heck no!
Because like Traisessive said, they are too darn cheap. Shareholders come first, everyone else last. That’s what really matters to those making the decisions.
I also agree completely about the yard congestion issue, but that is going to be even more expensive to fix and I don’t see anything being done to address it. We can’t even get new yard engines, let alone track.
But if they do decide to do something (hint, hint J.J. if you guys are reading this) rebuilding and reopening the Edmonton (Walker) hump yard would be a great place to start. It’s closure has been a unmitigated, congested disaster for most of the past 7 years.
I never would have thought CN was a cheap railroad (3.2 billion is a lot of money for budget), but this is now cause for concern here. It’s fine if it’s a person like me, who is definitely cheap, to be this way, but in the case of CN here, that is not a good thing, especially with all the scope of expansion possibilities.
Walker Yard I have heard numerous times as a choke point. I have started developing an analysis on relocating Walker’s main operations from Central Edmonton to Scotford or Fort Saskatchewan Yard near where many of the refineries are. Obvious downside would be this yard not directly on the mainline (on the Prairie North Line), but there are some good reasons to relocate the main operations. I even drove by that yard last October and noticed it was being added onto.
That being said, CN does have entirely double-track mainlines. From Pickering Junction, ON to Drummondville, QC, CN is entirely double-tracked. Also, from Aldershot to London, CN is entirely double-track. Those segments have been double-tracked for decades and whether they do such as a large scale project like UP is doing on their Sunset Route remains to be seen. I hope they do.
The only reason the Toronto to Montreal line remains double tracked is because of the VIA traffic. If the VIA traffic wasn’t there, Hunter would have torn the double track out years ago. The Kingston Sub does not have enough freight traffic to warrant double track. The same goes for the line to London.
I am very surprised by that, yet it makes sense since there are a lot of VIA trains going to between Toronto and Montreal and Toronto and southwestern Ontario. The reason I am surprised is CN is the one who built it and it is owned by CN and if it was for VIA, that was nice of them to do that. That would be an interesting reading to me on the double-tracking of the Kingston and Dundas Subdivisions.
Three questions for you:
How do you know this?
Do you have any references to refer me to so I can look this up?
Also, would you happen to know when it was double-tracked (decade of completion)?
I can’t recall the exact date but it may have been Grand Trunk who built the double track, before CN was formed. CTC would have been installed sometime after WWII.
It is unfortunately missing from the free online version, but a side piece to Fred Frailey’s feature article “Hunter’s Way or the Highway” (August 2009 issue of Trains Magazine) listed about 30 VIA passenger trains and 20 CN freights per day. 4 of those freights were wayfreights or roadswitchers. This TSB report from 2015 gives similar numbers:
Here is information on the double tracking of the Grand Trunk Railway between Montreal and Toronto.
Between the mid-1890s and the First World War, the GTR invested in massive infrastructure improvements. These included double-tracking of the main line from Montréal to Sarnia, reducing curves and grades to improve operating efficiency, and reconstruction of bridges, buildings and yards. The scale of these investments was such that no major upgrades were needed until after the Second World War.
It is interesting how the truth comes out eventually and how flippant Mr Feeny appears to have been at the time. He seems like a spin doctor who believes that if you say something is true often enough everbody will believe it is true. I would imagine that very few people would have had the courage to stand up to Mr Harrison.
It is also important to note that the Ontario single-tracking coincided with the installation of bi-directional CTC signalling on those lines. Previously they had only ABS, and I believe each track may have only been signalled in one direction. Freight traffic down east has been declining for many years for a multitude of reasons, many of which CN has little to no control over.
While the London-Sarnia line still has healthy freight freight traffic the Hamilton-Niagara Falls-Fort Erie line does not (it hosts fewer than 5 freights a day) and neither line currently has much passenger traffic. I would not be surprised at all to see Metrolinx (GO Transit) purchase the Grimsby Subdivision as part of their expansion plans.
The Jasper area is quite a different story. Almost as soon as Hunter left CN they tried to put that double track back in, only to have the request denied by Parks Canada. Why? Because during the same summer the double track was being removed CN tore down their old Jasper roundhouse in the middle of the night, quite literally the day before it was to be declared a historic building. T
Feeny was just the spokesman, the PR talking head that is. I doubt he could tell the difference between a locomotive and a grain car.
People seem to get him confused with Jim Foote for some reason, I guess their names sound similar but they are two very different people. Foote was the head of marketing at CN and a member of Hunter’s inner circle, and I would be quite happy to see him and Keith Creel hauled into court to explain these things.
Hunter would be a better witness but he is of course unavailable, having fled to warmer regions when things started to fall apart.
Wow. What an article. 64km from the Edson Subdivision removed under Harrison. I am shocked by that. I didn’t know that much double-track was removed from that line. What a mistake that was, especially since that was before intermodal was heading to Prince Rupert as that terminal was completed in 2007. Thank you very much for the information and link to the article.
I had feeling that VIA was not the reason for the double-trackage. I am very surprised that the double-track dates back to the 1940’s. I thought the only long distance double-track mainline was UP’s Overland Route from Chicago to Salt Lake City. I still have the August 2009 Issue of Trains Magazine which I still like to look at frequently which is totally contradicated by the March 2017 issue. I love the CN map in that magazine article. Thank you for the information.
Santa Fe’s Chicago-Los Angles mainline was historically double tracked, except for the middle section between eastern Kansas and central New Mexico, where the mainline split. With the downgrading of the Raton Pass line, the Southern Transcon is also now double tracked except for a couple of bridges. Of course many mainlines east of Chicago were double tracked.
With Hunter’s disdain for double track, you can see how he would have wasted no time ripping out much of the second main between Toronto and Montreal if VIA wasn’t there.
He ripped out a bunch on the IC in the US as well.
If the decline in freight traffic has occurred then why is there less track space available for passenger trains and why are they being re-scheuduled at slower and slower speeds over the years in eastern Canada? The reason for Via’s dismal on time performance is due to the decline in track capacity. The reduction in passenger service is not just the fault of the railways, governments are to slow to fund Via in order to upgrade tracks that would allow faster, more frequent and more reliable service.
The government allows abandonment of sections of track that destroy the network for passenger service. The government should not have allowed CN to abandon the
Do the railways need to get government approval to remove track from serv