CN Rail Working To Get Grain Movement Back On Track

Dec 04, 2019

CN Rail is working hard to get service back to normal following an eight day strike.

CN Rail Executive Vice-President, Corporate Services and Chief Legal Officer, Sean Finn, says the strike came to an end on Tuesday, November 26 when a tentative agreement was reached with their 3,200 conductors after some give and take from each party.

In a statement from CN Rail, they say the network continued to run at about 10 per cent capacity during the work stoppage.

Finn says because they had managers on the trains, they were actually able to spot grain cars during the strike.

"So if they were loaded at a facility, we'd move them out and then try and get them moving towards Vancouver, or Thunder Bay, or Prince Rupert. They weren't all delivered, but we did load, spot almost 53 grain trains during the strike itself."

Finn explains in the first week of the strike, they spotted 4,000 grain cars compared to the weekly target of 5,600 grain cars for this time of year.

"More importantly, almost 2,000 less cars than last year's same date, so it gives you an idea that we have some catching up to do, because this grain crop could be stronger than last year's."

He says same goes for the week ending December 1, where they moved 4,300 cars for both government and private grain.

Finn notes the strike came at a very busy time for the rail company moving grain at the end of harvest.

However, he says trains are moving and grain is being spotted, but not without its challenges.

"Can we unload them quickly enough to get the empties back to the prairies to start over again?" he said when explaining the struggles to getting service back on track. "You can be moving loaded cars to Vancouver, but if you don't have empties back in the prairies to load up again, you're going to have a hard time catching up."

The Company established a new CN Agricultural Advisory Council earlier this year, made up of industry stakeholders from across the county.

Finn says they kept them informed throughout the work disruption, and the group held their first in person meeting at Agribition in Regina last Tuesday, where he the company was also to tell the council the strike was settled.

"We had a very good meeting talking about more broadly the strike, but also how we're going to get through this year, and the size of the grain crop."

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