MONTREAL — It’s been a good year for Frank Trotter, the Montreal Gazette reported.
At the helm of CANAC Inc., a railway-services company, for the last five years as president and chief executive officer, Trotter has seen the company grow by 35 per cent in the last year. It added about 70 employees and projects revenues for 2002 of $100 million.
And a lot of that growth can be attributed to Beltpack, a remote-control device designed and manufactured by CANAC to power railcars in a yard without a driver.
Although not a new product, CANAC has sold more Beltpacks this year than in the last 10 years combined.
“The Beltpack technology is just exploding across the market in North America, in the U.S. in particular,” Trotter said.
The St. Laurent-based company provides rail services to railways, industrial customers and governments for both freight and passenger activity.
CANAC, which was established 31 years ago and has 500 employees, is fully owned by Canadian National Railway Co.
Trotter said that CANAC is a diversified company, offering a variety of different rail training and operation services to its clients.
But he said the Beltpack technology, a registered trademark of CANAC, accounts for about 50 per cent of the company’s business.
Trotter said the strap-on Beltpack device permits an operator to manoeuvre freight cars, uncoupling or reconnecting them in a yard, all by remote control.
The Beltpack transmitter communicates with an on-board locomotive receiver to control train movements, eliminating the need for an engineer to drive the locomotive.
Trotter said the technology has several benefits. He said the device is safer than having a human do the equivalent job. He said labour costs can be saved, and Beltpack produces more efficient and reliable work than before.
“There is less chance of damage to the freight and the equipment using remote control,” he said.
Designed in the late 1980s, Trotter said that until recently CANAC’s main buyers of the remote-control devices have been CN and Canadian Pacific Railway.
Trotter said CANAC had been unable to break into the U.S. market for a variety of reasons, including powerful labour unions trying to prevent the use of remote-control technology for fear of job losses, and governments unsure of whether to approve the technology.
But last year the Federal Railroad Administration developed guidelines allowing the use of remote-control technology, which permitted CANAC to start penetrating the U.S. market.
“We have shipped over 200 of these systems to the States this year. That’s more than we have sold in all the other years combined. This is explosive growth. It’s been a lot of hard work to get us this far,” Trotter said.
The cost of a Beltpack unit range from $160,000 to $170,000.
Mark Hallman, a spokesman for CN, said Beltpack has benefited the company significantly. He said 125 locomotives are currently outfitted with the technology, and 2,100 employees are trained to use it.
“We have over two million engine hours on Beltpack assignments, and the accident rate has dropped from 0.76 accidents per 1,000 engine hours to 0.31, a 56- per-cent reduction,” Hallman said. “It has been gratifying to see the improvement in safety operations.”
Hallman added that CN is saving about $20 million a year from production gains by using Beltpack.
Although Railway Age magazine, one of the industry’s leading trade papers, described Beltpack as having “by far the most sophisticated remote-control technology,” the market is becoming competitive. CANAC has sold units to rail companies including Kansas City Southern Industries and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, but competitors like Cattron-Theimeg Inc., are aggressively trying to tap into the market. Trotter said he is confident of CANAC’s technology.
“Beltpack will be strong,” Trotter said. “We have the industry-leading product, and we intend to stay in that position.”
The market is only about 10-per-cent saturated, Trotter added. “It’s an exciting time for a lot of reasons. There is the growth in the economy, and the rail industry has a chance to capture growth through efficiency and customer services.”
CANAC also provides training, including operation of locomotives and rail welding.
The company is involved in engineering construction and reconstruction of rail lines, improvement of existing rail lines and adding new rail lines. It’s currently working on the rail line in Alma, and the GO-Transit line in Toronto for Via Rail.
CANAC also focuses on analysis and planning of rail operations.