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We in North America tend to think that because something is big it must be the best. Yes CN is big, although not as big as UP or BNSF, but big is not necessarily better. One reason why CN is currently on top of the heap is because of its financial performance. In order to do this CN has shed miles of trackage so it is basically an end to end system, not a network. It takes much more work and skill to run a network and have co-ordination at many different nodes than the structure of CN's routes. This is why it is difficult for BNSF, UP, NS and CSX to achieve the same results. It becomes even more difficult to compare the results with those of European rail networks. In order to achieve its financial sucesses it has taken short term views by announcing decisions to decrease the amount of double trackage in several key areas such as between Jasper and Kamloops and between London and Sarnia. These segments are not low density routes but high density routes. Where is the logic? One can only surmise the this is being done to improve short term shareholder performance. As a CN shareholder this does not benefit the company in the long run. This has a short term improvement in costs but in the long term it leads to higher future costs since the future costs of replacing the trackage will be much greater. In the interim, trains move at a slower velocity making it more difficult for trains to compete with trucks or passenger trains to compete with automobiles. It is easy to shed capacity but much more difficult to add capacity. It is also easier to shed capacity than to build traffic to utilize the existing capacity at a moderate traffic density. <br /> You are quite correct in saying that a number of CN's decisions have been good ones, let us hope that most of the decisions in the future continue to be as good.
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