(Bloomberg circulated the following story by Reg Curren on March 12.)
CALGARY — Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd., Canada’s second-largest railroad, will add 41 leased locomotives in the second quarter to help erase a backlog of shipments after avalanches and derailments blocked trains in late January, a company spokesman said.
Additional crews will be hired to run the locomotives, which will be on long-term lease from General Electric Co.’s transportation equipment unit, said Canadian Pacific spokesman Len Cocolicchio. He declined to provide a cost for the leases.
There have been complaints from Canadian grain shippers that the railway has fallen behind in moving wheat and that it still hasn’t cleared a backlog from January. The locomotives were initially set for delivery in 2005, though with increased demand from customers shipping grain, fertilizer and coal the railway decided to advance that, Cocolicchio said.
“Traffic levels are strong and we are responding,” Cocolicchio said in a telephone interview. “Obviously, there will be some benefit to all shippers.”
The Calgary-based railway isn’t responding directly to complaints from grain companies, he said. Canadian Pacific has had trouble clearing the backlog because shipping volumes for all commodities is “very high,” Cocolicchio said. He couldn’t say when the traffic glut might be cleared.
Shares of Canadian Pacific rose 32 cents to C$31.32 by 4 p.m. on the Toronto Stock Exchange.
Canadian National Railway Co., based in Montreal, is the country’s biggest railroad.