(The following appeared on the Journal of Commerce website on May 11, 2011.)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Canadian National is spending nearly US$39 million to add tracks and make rail yard improvements on busy lanes in and east of Edmonton, Alberta, that handle rail traffic for Canada and the U.S. Midwest.
CN said the work includes adding capacity to an oil sands region of northern Alberta, and increasing velocity at its Walker Yard in Edmonton that builds commodity and merchandise carload trains. It’s one of the carrier’s largest such rail yards in western Canada. CN handles intermodal traffic at a separate terminal in Edmonton.
Much of the work will target the Wainwright Subdivision of track, which runs east of Edmonton to Biggar, Saskatchewan. Company spokesman Mark Hallman said that is “a key segment of CN’s transcontinental main line (and) one of the highest-density corridors on CN’s system.”
The subdivision carries merchandise, bulk commodity and intermodal trains from western to eastern Canada and into the central U.S.
Hallman said the segment’s intermodal business includes ocean containers arriving at the Pacific Ocean ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert, bound for central Canada, Chicago and Memphis, plus domestic intermodal traffic.
Full story: www.joc.com