Vancouver British Columbia - The City of Vancouver has renewed its effort to stop CP from resuming operations along the Arbutus Corridor railway track.
 
In late June, CP announced it would begin storing train cars along the railway this summer.
 
Last Friday (7 Aug 2015) the City of Vancouver applied to the Canadian Transportation Agency for two orders dealing with the matter.
 
The city argues that by abandoning rail operations in 2001, "CPR has fundamentally breached the Canadian Transportation Act, which outlines the mandatory steps required for discontinuing a railway.
 
Under Section 145 of the Canadian Transportation Act, CPR was required to offer the corridor to governments for purchase at its net salvage value, which it did not do."
 
Now it wants the CTA to order CPR to discontinue the railway and make an offer for its 2004 value.
 
The two orders the city applied for are:

• An order that would have the effect of cancelling CPR's 14 Apr 2014 amendment of its three-year plan, where they removed the Arbutus Corridor from the list of lines they intended to discontinue;
   
  
• An order requiring CPR to make an offer for the corridor at the 2004 net salvage value, which was the year in which the CTA mandated CPR to make an offer, something which CPR did not do.

The city maintains there are safety risks if CP resumes rail operations, including deteriorated rail infrastructure, 50 public crossings at grade, 18 of which have outdated crossing lights and signals, lack of fencing along the corridor, and 15 years of extensive public use without any risk of rail operations.
 
"City officials requested information from CPR to allow the City to better understand their operating plan given there has been no commercial service requirements on the spur for at least 15 years," a press release from the City of Vancouver states.
 
"The plan involves storage of rail cars along the line and the City has requested a number of issues to be addressed by CPR to allow steps to be taken to better protect the public and minimize disruption to residents, first responders, and other vehicles using the multiple east-west arterials that will be significantly impacted by train movements."

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