(The Canadian Press circulated the following story on December 19.
CALGARY — Canadian Pacific Railway says it will be able to increase the length of its intermodal trains due to the introduction of remote-control units that mimick the actions of engineers in leading locomotives.
The remote-control units enable CPR to run intermodal trains approaching three kilometres in length through the winter, when they were previously shortened because of air-pressure loss in colder temperatures.
The net result, the Calgary railway says, will be an estimated 28% increase in containers per train and 16% drop in intermodal train starts.
Last year, intermodal generated almost $900-million of CPR’s $3.5 billion in freight revenue.