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EOU Finds New Name: St. Lawrence & Hudson New Player in Eastern
Marketplace
Presidient Jacques Cote hosts press conference in Montreal.
Montreal - CP Rail System's eastern operating unit, created last
year as part of the railway's reorganization, has been named the St. Lawrence & Hudson Railway (SL&H).
In a news release 2 Apr 1996, CPRS announced it has created a separate identity for the regional network in Eastern Canada and the Northeast U.S., naming it
after the two major rivers that run through the region.
The St. Lawrence & Hudson will continue to anchor vital freight links between Montreal, the Northeastern U.S. and the American Midwest, the railway said.
"Historically, the St. Lawrence and the Hudson rivers defined the north-south and east-west (routes) of trade and commerce in this part of the
continent," said Jacques Cote, president of the SL&H.
The name also contains a reference to the Delaware and Hudson Railway, whose corporate status remains unchanged.
Last November, Canadian Pacific Limited announced a corporate restructuring and railway reorganization program designed to improve railway performance.
The Montreal-based eastern unit was created to address the problems facing the railway in the East. As part of the reorganization, Canadian Pacific intends
to transfer its eastern railway assets to the SL&H.
For many years, operations in the East have been struggling, fighting strong intermodal competition, low traffic densities, network over-capacity, the
absence of a solid base of bulk traffic, and uneven regulatory and fiscal playing fields, the railway said.
The SL&H will be responsible for operations between Montreal, Toronto, Chicago, and the U.S. Northeast, providing an efficient, low-cost railway service
in the region.
"In doing so, we will maintain and strengthen our links to CP Rail System's continental network and continue to offer seamless service to our Canadian
and U.S. customers," Cote said.
"Similarly, we will restructure our secondary feeder network with a view to maintaining and improving low-cost services by developing partnerships with
new operators or by creating internal shortlines."
The SL&H will concentrate its activities on those business segments where it has competitive strengths. It will also emphasize scheduled trainload
operations to maximize the productivity of its assets and aggressively meet the intense truck competition that prevails in the eastern market.
Marketing, sales, and customer service on the SL&H will continue to be provided as an integral part of CPRS's system-wide commercial organization.
This arrangement gives the SL&H the autonomy to focus on making operations more efficient and train service more effective, while maintaining a level of
commercial support for customers that is consistent across the entire CPRS network.
In addition, the SL&H is planning to test the new Iron Highway technology on its corridor between Montreal and Toronto in the fall of 1996. Iron Highway
offers a highly flexible intermodal service in short-haul markets of 500 to 1,000 km (310 to 620 miles). Iron Highway uses continuous platform railway
equipment that can handle standard (non-reinforced) highway trailers of any length.
Canadian Pacific's corporate restructuring is subject to approval by certain regulatory authorities, approval by certain security holders, and approval by
the court.
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