Vol. 12 Number 1 Jan 13, 1982

Construction of the $1.2 billion natural gas pipeline across Quebec and to the Maritimes could mean an additional revenue in excess of $2 million for CP Rail.

The railway has already shipped 7,000 tons of 30 inch diameter pipeline to a storage site near one of the company's team tracks in Boisbriand, 10 miles north of Montreal, and an equal quantity of pipeline to another site at L'Epiphanie, off the eastern tip of Montreal Island.

BIDDING HARD

CP Rail has also won a contract from the pipeline builders, Trans Quebec and Maritimes Pipeline Inc. (TQM), to transport the 80 foot lengths of pipeline to a site at Louiseville, 41 miles northeast of Montreal and is bidding hard to win the right to ship the pipeline materials to another site at Trois-Rivieres, 80 miles northeast of Montreal.

After Trois-Rivieres, the pipeline will follow a route through Quebec territory served exclusively by Canadian National. However, when construction reaches Edmundston, N.B. as scheduled next year, CP Rail will be trying hard to earn other contracts to haul the pipeline to sites between Edmundston and Saint John, N.B.

The decision to award the shipping contracts is based heavily on the storage sites the railway proposes, says J. Carrol Bourque, industrial development officer with marketing and sales in Montreal.

"The requirements for a site are much more complicated than they would appear at first view," he explains. "The land must have a solid base and have good drainage, be fairly close to the pipeline construction site, be easily accessible by major roads so that the large trucks being used to carry the 80 foot lengths of pipeline can get to and from the site efficiently and, above all, be available to TQM for the period of time they need it."

"All these things must be verified and guaranteed before the site is proposed," he says.

When the first shipment arrived at Boisbriand, Mr. Bourque was on hand to watch the unloading and storing of the steel pipes manufactured by Stelco of Welland, Ontario.

"After watching them unload and store the pipeline, I had a better idea of what TQM required from us. This knowledge will serve us well in selecting future sites," he said.

Crews using a crane had the pipeline unloaded from CP Rail flatcars and stored at a specially prepared site adjacent to the Boisbriand siding within a day.

In addition to selecting numerous unloading and storage sites along the pipeline route, CP Rail has also put together an attractive rates package for the transportation of the pipeline and will co-ordinate these shipments with Stelco's production schedule.

"Putting this package together was a joint effort between the operating, pricing, marketing and sales people here in Montreal, and in our Hamilton office," says Mr. Bourque. "Without this effort, we would not have a chance of winning these important contracts."

Three hundred track miles of rail costing more than $40 million has baen ordered from Algoma Steel in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

Approximately 81,000 39 foot lengths of the rail will be joined into quarter-mile-long sections of continuous welded rail (CWR) at CP Rail's welding plants at Transcona, Manitoba, and Smith Falls, Ontario. Delivery is underway and will be spread out over the next nine months.

As Canadian Pacific enters its second century of operation, the staff of CP Rail News feels it is time to give the newspaper a new image. But the changes in store for readers are more than just cosmetic.

Making its debut on page 4 is a new puzzle called "Occupation Please" and while this issue's puzzle is fairly easy to solve, we can assure readers it will get progressively more difficult as the year wears on.

On the planning board is a series of articles about CP Rail people, the work they do in their divisions and main shops and general interest articles we hope will not only inform, but entertain you and your family. This is your newspaper and though we cannot comply with all of our readers' requests because of limited space, we would be interested in hearing about someone or something you feel other readers would like to read about.