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Summer/Fall 2005
Canadian Pacific Railway Employee Communications
Room 500 401-9th Ave
S.W. Calgary AB T2P 4Z4
Train Crews Take Faster Route to
Chicago
by Doug Welsh - Business Planning &
Development
Under and Over: The first
CPR train to take advantage of our new trackage rights on Norfolk Southern ducks into the Windsor
Tunnel.
The Port of Montreal processes more North Atlantic
container trade with Chicago than any other eastern seaboard port, and CPR has the majority of this business; but the
way in which we move this and other traffic between Ontario and Chicago is about to change in important ways.
For the first time, CPR crews will operate CPR's trains between Detroit and Chicago under what is termed a
"trackage rights arrangement".
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NS Bound: CPR crew members operating on Norfolk Southern lines, from
left, conductor Troy Tooki, student engineer David O'Connell, engineer Scott Carney, and conductors Kelly
"Biff" Berry and Greg Kalin.
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Norfolk Southern Railway's (NS) lines will be used between Detroit and Chicago. Altogether, the new route is just
less than 300 miles, measured between Detroit and CPR's Bensenville Yard. This is nearly 50-miles
shorter than the route currently used by CPR to reach Chicago from Detroit, over which CSX crews haul CPR trains on
the former railroad's line.
Chicago is the hub for trade with the US Midwest. It is also the railway industry's busiest city. Trade between
Central Canada (Ontario and Quebec) and Chicago has been growing in importance since the earliest days of railroading.
In 2004, container traffic alone handled between the Port of Montreal and Chicago accounted for some 300,000 TEUs
(Twenty foot equivalent container units), carried on about 1,200 CPR trains.
As part of the CPR/NS deal to form a route to Chicago, NS has constructed a connection at Butler, Indiana, this year.
For the first time, red and gold CPR locomotives will be a regular sight running through towns like Elkhart, known
for the manufacture of recreational trailers and the invention of Alka Seltzer, and South Bend, the home of former
car maker Studebaker and the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame University.
The crew change location and home terminal for 50-60 new CPR employees will be Elkhart, Indiana. Elkhart
has a proud railway past - a predecessor railway of the New York Central reached Elkhart in 1851, and NYC constructed
a large classification yard to support Chicago that today is a key facility in the NS system.
Glen Davis, CPR's new manager of train operations in Elkhart says, "I have been looking forward to the new
operation. The infrastructure of the new route is ideal for high-volume, high-speed main
line railroading, and our trains and employees are fitting right in".
Today, CPR averages about 56 trains per week between Ontario and Chicago. The plan is to transfer nearly all of these
to the new route over the Norfolk Southern, with a few trains per week remaining on the CSX haulage route for the
foreseeable future. This transition should be complete by the end of this year.
The new route will deliver important benefits. Transit times will be cut by several hours and operating costs will be
reduced, making the route more competitive. Growth will be more easily accommodated as the train length limit
increases from about 6,500 feet to 8,500 feet. And CPR will have more control over the operation by utilizing its own
employees to operate the trains.
- 1884 Making train connections with Michigan Central at Detroit
- 1888 Via Duluth South Shore & Atlantic and Minneapolis, St. Paul
and Sault Ste. Marie (Soo Line predecessors), from Sault Ste. Marie
- 1985 Haulage agreement with CSX, Windsor/Detroit to Chicago, via
Detroit, Michigan
- 2001 Haulage agreement with CN, via Sarnia, Ontario
- 2005 Trackage rights arrangement with Norfolk Southern, via Elkhart,
Indiana
This Momentum magazine article is copyright
2005 by Canadian Pacific Railway and is reprinted here with their permission. All photographs, logos, and trademarks
are the property of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company.
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