CN buying 50% stake in CBNS - Sidney Port Expansion?

MONTREAL, Nov. 01, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CN (TSX: CNR) (NYSE: CNI) today announced that it acquired from Genesee & Wyoming Inc., a stake in the Cape Breton & Central Nova Scotia Railway that includes 145 miles of active track.

“We are proud to be partnering with Genesee & Wyoming to serve existing customers on this line. This partnership will further reinforce CN’s presence in eastern Canada where we believe there will be a growing role to play in the competitiveness of North American trade. It will also enable our network to reach new opportunities in the longer-term, further advancing our strategic agenda of accelerating profitable, sustainable growth.”

Patrick Lortie, Senior Vice-President and Chief Strategy Officer at CN
The CBNS railway, which interchanges with CN’s mainline at Truro, Nova Scotia, will continue to be operated by a Genesee & Wyoming Inc. subsidiary. This will ensure a seamless, safe, and efficient continuation of service for customers.

Link to the CN press release: https://www.cn.ca/en/news/2023/11/cn-an ... --wyoming/

Link to CBNS page: https://www.gwrr.com/cbns/

Canadian National will be buying a stake in the Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway. According to the separate Genesee & Wyoming press release, CN will manage interline shipments while CBNS will continue to operate the railroad.

I did some quick research and found this: https://novaporte.ca/

It appears that CN and NovaPorte want to turn Sidney into something akin to Halifax or Saint John. The plan involves building out Sidney to handle 18,000+ TEU ships and rebuilding the portion of the CBNS between Port Hawkesbury and Sidney to 40 mph.

Thoughts?

Very interesting to see both cn and cp move to restore their east coast connections.
Can halifax not handle the largest ships? If not, great idea. Sydney is a perfect natural harbour. Rail ROW exists but needs full tebuild. I recall it was at least 40 mph when it was previously a main line with newfoundland containers, coal and steel traffic. I paced a mainline train crossing canso causeway in the 1980s

Where does it say 50 percent?
I just saw “a stake.”

Visited Sydney this summer and asked around about the port expansion and one person said they dredged the harbor but that was all. The rail line a few miles east of Port Hawksbury was all weeds and no notable work completed as of yet.

Plans changed with Novaport, there has been news articles that the project will be repurposed as a offshore wind facility.
Link: https://www.offshorewind.biz/2023/03/28 ... -1.7162606 with CN saying they had no interest in the line. Despite having 115 pound welded rail the railroad is in extremely poor condition. Lots of major washouts which can be seen on google earth, major vegetation growth, deteriorating bridges, among a laundry list of other stuff would need to be done to get the railroad operational again.

Novaport is jus another political football at this point. They have been talking about building it for over 30 years now with only marginal gains to show for it. It would make sense to build an port on the strait of canso which would require less rail upgrades from what has been said el;ewhere.

This article is a good perspective on the issue. https://capebretonspectator.com/2020/09 ... novaporte/