Winnipeg - The railway is testing a new operating procedure in Western Canada that enables westbound solid grain trains to reduce travelling time from the Prairies to British Columbia by up to 21 hours.

Generally speaking, a solid trains consists of one or two types of cars carrying the same commodity and having the same destination but usually originating from various shippers.

"Normally, the train would be broken to insert the robots at Calgary, just before it gets to the mountains", said Jim Geddis, CP Rail's chief of transportation. "It would then have to be processed through Alyth Yard, and that takes from 12 to 24 hours."

"By placing a robot car in a solid train at its origin, we can eliminate the classification and marshalling procedures at Alyth", said Mr. Geddis. "The solid train can be serviced, the crew changed, and a full inspection made of the train in about three hours, a saving of up to 21 hours on the trip to the coast."

Due to steep grades west of Calgary, heavy trains require robot units to direct power to mid-train and trailing locomotives. A robot is an un-manned relay car linking the lead locomotive with the remote locomotive by radio control. The railway has about 30 robot cars.

"A recent decline in coal and potash traffic has made available surplus robots and we took the opportunity to test this new procedure", said Mr. Geddis. "it has been very successful and well received by our customers."

"Recently we tested a 101-car solid grain train from Moose Jaw to Vancouver. By placing the robot car in the train at Moose Jaw and only stopping for three hours in Calgary, the train arrived in Vancouver in 44 hours instead of about 60 hours."

In total, CP Rail has operated 19 solid trains of grain and potash from Prairie points to Vancouver, all on a test basis, since January of this year. In every case the new procedure resulted in significantly reduced travelling time.