Railroad Forums 

  • Changes happening at CP

  • Discussion relating to the past and present operations of CPR. Official web site can be found here: CPR.CA. Includes Kansas City Southern.
Discussion relating to the past and present operations of CPR. Official web site can be found here: CPR.CA. Includes Kansas City Southern.

Moderators: Komachi, Ken V

 #1049369  by 2nd trick op
 
There's some commentay in this month's issue of Trains regarding possible restructuring or rationalization of the lines of CPR and its Amercan partners and subsidiaries. One particularly tantalizing possibility was the sale of the Windsor-Toronto line to an American carrier -- sort of the reverse of CN's acquisition of Illinois Central -- it bears watching.
 #1050417  by mtuandrew
 
2nd trick op wrote:There's some commentay in this month's issue of Trains regarding possible restructuring or rationalization of the lines of CPR and its Amercan partners and subsidiaries. One particularly tantalizing possibility was the sale of the Windsor-Toronto line to an American carrier -- sort of the reverse of CN's acquisition of Illinois Central -- it bears watching.
What sets CP Rail aside from other carriers is the most direct mainline from the Pacific Northwest to Chicago, Montreal, and Buffalo (the New York Harbor gateway.) A sale of the corridor is a strange and disconcerting proposal, one that would adversely impact its ability to capitalize on that short mainline. The company has been effectively frozen out of the New York Harbor market, is struggling to make hay on the North Dakota oil fields, and is the only one of the seven Class 1s with no Gulf of Mexico access, so I don't see how sale of the corridor will do anything but make CP a less-desirable merger partner.

The sale of the MILW main to Wisconsin and Minnesota is another strange suggestion in a pre-merger CP Rail - though better than selling the corridor, it would affect CP's ability to mothball its Lake Superior main from Thunder Bay to Sudbury, as Trains also suggested. A sale of the D&H to NS and/or New York would be a much better idea, with fewer drawbacks aside from the loss of market share. Trains didn't suggest this, but CP Rail might also consider selling the former ICE KC-Chicago line to KCS, to get some cash out of the DM&E purchase and develop even more goodwill with KCS.

Ultimately, I think CP is headed into the arms of Union Pacific and one of the eastern carriers. It's up to the CP Board of Directors to ensure their company is a lean, well-rounded Class One carrier with lots of traffic sources and useful mainline, or the merger will be sooner, in more small bites, and at a great loss to shareholders.
 #1052568  by CPF363
 
CP should have purchased the old Michigan Central between Chicago and Detroit the Southern Tier Line between Buffalo and the Port of New York during the breakup of Conrail. This would have given their Chicago-Toronto-Vancouver Main Line a logical extension to the east to the Port of New York. They could have marketed ocean to ocean container traffic on a single line over the route while serving big markets at the same time on the route. The D&H would have benefited also by having a friendly owned outlet to the Soo Line verses relying on trackage and haulage agreements. They could have even tried to get a route across the Mid West (the old PRR in Ohio and Indiana is operated by a short line). Why they did not go after anything during the split of Contrail is really baffling, these routes seem like logical additions to their own system.
 #1052651  by mtuandrew
 
CPF363 wrote:CP should have purchased the old Michigan Central between Chicago and Detroit the Southern Tier Line between Buffalo and the Port of New York during the breakup of Conrail. This would have given their Chicago-Toronto-Vancouver Main Line a logical extension to the east to the Port of New York. They could have marketed ocean to ocean container traffic on a single line over the route while serving big markets at the same time on the route. The D&H would have benefited also by having a friendly owned outlet to the Soo Line verses relying on trackage and haulage agreements. They could have even tried to get a route across the Mid West (the old PRR in Ohio and Indiana is operated by a short line). Why they did not go after anything during the split of Contrail is really baffling, these routes seem like logical additions to their own system.
Agreed on the MC, and either the E-L Tier or the entire LV. Why CP never bid on either (or wasn't allowed) I don't know, though I'm sure Conrail appreciated not having even more competition in Michigan and New York.
 #1056616  by GulfRail
 
2nd trick op wrote:There's some commentay in this month's issue of Trains regarding possible restructuring or rationalization of the lines of CPR and its Amercan partners and subsidiaries. One particularly tantalizing possibility was the sale of the Windsor-Toronto line to an American carrier -- sort of the reverse of CN's acquisition of Illinois Central -- it bears watching.
I agree with selling the D&H (perhaps to NS), but not with selling the Windsor-Toronto line or lopping off everything east of Thunder Bay. That'd be giving CN an entire (very important) market all to itself, while further marginalizing CP's position. A better idea would be to implement directional running between Winnipeg and Toronto with CN, while selling some of the under-performing parts of the IC&E/DM&E to KCS.
 #1058739  by JayBee
 
Canadian Pacific has announced the appointment of Mr. E. Hunter Harrison as President and CEO of Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. this morning June 29th, 2012.
 #1063117  by CPF363
 
Does anyone have any predictions as to what E. Hunter Harrison will do at CP. Looking ahead, what will the CP Rail System look like in 2 years? Will they be rid of the D&H or DM&E or both and will lines in eastern Canada be scaled back as some have suggested? Could CP ultimately go after KCS or merger with another system in the future?
 #1063211  by Autoblock
 
Check out New York State Forum Southern Tier West ( Most recent posts) or go to the Yahoo Group CPSunburysub there is gonna be big changes by the sounds of things!
 #1066403  by JayBee
 
Well EHH has begun to shake things up at CP, TransCanada Intermodals 110/111 have been replaced by new 100/101 which will do no work enroute, previously 110/111 made pickups and setouts at Calgary, Regina, and Winnipeg. All crew changes were cut from 20 minutes to 5 minutes allowed. Fred Frailey reports that the first train 101 for Vancouver arrived 17 hours faster than 111 was scheduled to arrive, let alone actual running time. Manifests were operated between each of the main terminals, i.e. Winnipeg - Moose Jaw, but they didn't connect well with each other meaning long delays with connecting carload traffic. New trains 200/201 Toronto to Vancouver have replaced this system to ensure long-haul carload traffic is expedited and switched as little as possible. Sales and Marketing has been instructed to get the train filled.
 #1066422  by Tadman
 
I love it. You gotta wonder what makes a guy like Freddie Green flip-flop so many times when all it took EHH was a week to make the two changes above. If I had money in the market right now rather than some other assets, I would sink some into CP.

That said, I've got another interesting few questions:

1. Given that CN under EHH was pretty friendly to EMD in their dark days, will CP turn to EMD for at least token locomotive orders now?

2. Do you think the Royal Canadian Pacific tour train will leave the CP timetable? I could see it being sold to a tour operator like Rocky Mountaineer, or outright canceled. I don't know that EHH is passenger-hostile (I think overall, he's oriented toward anything that boosts the bottom line) given that he didn't fight the ACR passenger trains and kept the CN biz train, orphan E9s and all.
 #1066520  by JayBee
 
Tadman wrote:I love it. You gotta wonder what makes a guy like Freddie Green flip-flop so many times when all it took EHH was a week to make the two changes above. If I had money in the market right now rather than some other assets, I would sink some into CP.

That said, I've got another interesting few questions:

1. Given that CN under EHH was pretty friendly to EMD in their dark days, will CP turn to EMD for at least token locomotive orders now?
Bad sign that all the SD90MACs went back into storage, including those that had just been overhauled within the last month.

2. Do you think the Royal Canadian Pacific tour train will leave the CP timetable? I could see it being sold to a tour operator like Rocky Mountaineer, or outright canceled. I don't know that EHH is passenger-hostile (I think overall, he's oriented toward anything that boosts the bottom line) given that he didn't fight the ACR passenger trains and kept the CN biz train, orphan E9s and all.
I think the Royal Canadian Pacific will be cut, 2816 will be parked pending a decision to be made at a later date, no change to the Holiday Trains.

Listen to the 2Q conference call for Analysts, I missed the beginning and will have to go back on Thursday. In the Q&A he talked about the yards as where the biggest improvements can be made, 70% of CP's traffic is Unit trains which don't require yards except for crew changes. He said CP does too much switching for the amount of other traffic it handles. Look for downsizing and reconfiguration of some of the current yards. Planned roll out of the new operating plan is for about the time of the 3Q Analysts Call.
CP will meet volume targets announced earlier this year for 2013 carloads of Crude Oil before the end of 2012.
 #1067139  by Tadman
 
Jay, well put. I seem to recall yards were his first target at CN, too. Ever hear the story of the Montreal yardmaster that started telling EHH how to run a railroad? He was out on the street in a few days.

Logically, yards are a good starting point. They have the most variables and highest headcounts. Yards are where Pearlman started when he rebuilt the NYC in the 50's, and they were the most glaring problem on the combined PC owing to the fact that PRR never touched their yards, which were black holes. Rumor has it a boxcar load of Packards was place on a RIP track and was never found until the PC trustee was cleaning up the yards. Not sure how true that is.
 #1301855  by rovetherr
 
As of November 4th, there is now only one dispatcher covering the D+H, instead of the usual two. I shall express my feelings on the matter using the following picture...
Image
 #1302415  by JayBee
 
rovetherr wrote:As of November 4th, there is now only one dispatcher covering the D+H, instead of the usual two.
Well they won't have to lay anybody off once the sale of the southern portion goes through.