22 September 2010

Canada Passenger, Freight Rails Face Strain, Says Study

Vancouver British Columbia - Canada's freight and commuter rail companies could face more, and increasingly expensive, service delays and accidents if they don't find ways to better share tracks, according to a report released on Tuesday.
 
Passenger traffic on Canada's rail corridors has surged in the past two decades due to a growing population and urban sprawl, a Conference Board of Canada report said.
 
At the same time, freight volumes, which often run on the same tracks, have shot up for Canada's two big rail companies, Canadian National Railway Co, and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd., partly because of massive growth in trade with Asia.
 
"Transportation congestion is often thought of as a problem for roads and highways," said Gilles Rheaume, vice-president of public policy at the independent think tank.
 
"However, the increase in commuter rail services over the past decade and the pre-recession boom in rail freight created bottlenecks on Canadian railways as well," Rheaume said in a statement.
 
Railways are an important transportation mode in the world's second biggest country where industry relies heavily on them to move goods as diverse as coal, potash, and consumer goods.
 
Rail freight revenue in Canada totaled $9.96 billion in 2008, the report said. Passenger revenue for the same year was $661 million.
 
One option to ease rail snarl-ups is for passenger operators to buy existing lines from CN and CP, which own most of the tracks, so that they can better control and direct their traffic, the report said.