TORONTO — Canadian Pacific Railway will spend $3.5 million to expand its Expressway “trailer on train” fleet that caters to trucking companies and add track at a Toronto terminal, according to a wire service report.
The railway announced Thursday it will add 50 new Expressway-car “platforms” — specialized trains meant for quick loading and unloading of truck trailers for transport — to its current fleet of 260.
Expressway is a highway trailer-on-train service that partners with trucking companies and fleet owners to get their loaded trailers from one terminal to another while saving on tractor investments, driver, fuel and maintenance expenses. It also reduces time spent waiting to cross the Canada-U.S. border, CPR says.
Twenty of the new platforms will be ready by this fall for the Toronto-Detroit route. The balance of 30 platforms will be delivered at the end of 2002 or early in 2003.
The contract for the car order, which will be produced by converting earlier-generation intermodal cars, has yet to be assigned, CPR said.
“The growth that we’re seeing is coming from both new customers coming on-line and our existing customers further taking advantage of the benefits of our Expressway service,” said Paul Gilmore, vice-president for Expressway, said in a statement.
CPR will also add 1,219 metres of track to its Toronto Terminal to allow more trailer loading and unloading.
The capital improvements, along with a new Windsor, Ont., terminal which opened last December, will be used to further increase capacity on the Montreal-Toronto and Toronto-Detroit legs of the Expressway service, CPR said in a statement.