(Reuters circulated the following article on January 26.)
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway said on Thursday they have overhauled train operations to the Port of Vancouver in a bid to ease congestion fears.
The historic rivals, who began sharing portions of their their parallel mainlines in western British Columbia in 2000, will now divide train operating duties based on where freight is moving through Canada’s largest port.
“We compete vigorously as two railroads, but we’ve got an operations solution here that I think that the terminal operators and port authorities are going to be pleased with,” said Fred Green, CP Rail’s chief operating officer.
CN Rail crews will handle all trains between Boston Bar, British Columbia, about 200 km (125 miles) east of Vancouver, and terminals on the north side of the port. CP Rail crews will run trains between Boston Bar and the port’s south side terminals.
Canadian Pacific crews will also run all coal trains from Boston Bar to the Roberts Bank coal port, although the railroads will still run their own trains to the Roberts Bank container facility.
No financial terms were disclosed.
The railways said the deal was part of a commitment they had made to ease rail congestion to the Pacific Coast port that is predicted to see strong growth in both bulk commodity and container traffic over the next decade.
Terminals on the port’s north side handle bulk materials such as coal, grain and potash, while container traffic primarily goes to the south side — where there are also two grain facilities.
The agreement does not change how they handle freight to the Fraser River port adjacent to Vancouver that handles container, automobile and cargo shipments.
Canadian National last week announced a deal to take over dispatching duties from Burlington Northern Sate Fe Corp.
CN Rail Chief Executive Hunter Harrison said on Tuesday he expected his railroad would announce two or three traffic routing or trackage rights deal with rival carriers by the end of the first quarter.