NORFOLK, Va. — Officials from Canadian National and Norfolk Southern today announced that a new joint interline service initiative is reducing transit times by one to two days for carload traffic between western Canada and NS destinations in th...
http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2017/10/27-cn-ns-intermodal-service
Brian Schmidt, Editor, Classic Trains magazine
They have also been cooperating on trains to Montreal and they have some reciprocal trackage rights agreements in southern Illinois.
Will they become more integrated like UP and CNW were for a number of years before UP bought CNW?
Maybe we’ll see Canadian National & Southern soon.
There are not that many combinations of merger partners remaining but somehow I think we will be surprised with what happens.
Not sure how the 'International" vs national sovereignty angle plays out either. Perhaps we will see the Grand Trunk and Soo Line resurrected again.
Trudeau government is not business friendly at all and foolishly aligning itself with Mexico and key left causes and issues in the current ongoing Nafta talks. That could throw a monkey wrench into things as well.
Miningman, I agree with your assessment. National infrastructure issues will always keep CN and CP as Canadian companies, and whatever the final two railroads in the US end up being named, they will alway continue to be US companies.
However, I think when the dust settles on the final round of consolidation, we'll actually end up with four companies operating in the Eastern US. BNSF and UP will end up taking the lion's share of NS and CSX, depending on who their partner is, and indeed the Grand Trunk Western (CN) and Soo Line (CP) will end up owning significant components, but a smaller portion, of NS and CSX to give them legitimate access to the mid-Atlantic region, the eastern part of the upper Midwest, and Atlanta and the Southeast.
There are enough duplicate routes in the East that such a division of the two Eastern Class I railroads would be possible.
Just my cracked and cloudy crystal ball.
Does anyone else find the title of this thread wrong? I see no mention of intermodal service, just carload and manifest trains. Usually that means general freight in a multitude of car types. While there could be intermodal (trailers and containers) in the mix, I see nothing that indicates a joint intermodal service. I'm not even sure if one could call it a new "joint service". It sounds like they've just agreed to interchange existing traffic by using run-through trains at a point outside of the normal Chicago area. Not a bad thing, but not really a new joint intermodal service.
Jeff
jeffhergertDoes anyone else find the title of this thread wrong?
You've got it. In the first sentence of the article it says interline service.
When I first started reading the article yesterday I got it wrong, until I realized from the rest of the article just what they were talking about.
Bruce
So shovel the coal, let this rattler roll.
"A Train is a Place Going Somewhere" CP Rail Public Timetable
"O. S. Irricana"
. . . __ . ______
See, a service improvement *can* happen without merger!
- PDN.
I am glad to see that the railroads are woking to bypass the Chicago bottleneck. How would using St Louis, Kansas City and Memphis as other bypass cities work?
It's nice that CN and NS are working together. The key to the whole thing is blocking. What blocks is Elkhart building for CN and what blocks is CN building for NS. That's the key to getting transit days out of shipments.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
caldreamerI am glad to see that the railroads are woking to bypass the Chicago bottleneck
I don't see "BYPASS" in the agreement, just that the cars will be run-through. Not yarded in Chicago. CN and NS are interchanging two eastbound and two westbound manifest trains daily through greater Chicago, I take this to mean that CN may run their train via the former EJ&E to a connection (not sure where) with NS but not through Clearing. Could connection be at South Bend? I don't think so but not sure where else CN & NS have connections.
CSSHEGWISCH, got any ideas?
When I said bypass, I ment bypassing the Chicago bottleneck (e.g.: going through the various Chicago yards) to get a train from the eastern railroads to the western and Canadian railroads and vice versa which slows transit times down..
The most amusing part of this ‘news’ is that according to the story the interline service has been running since August ... any mention of it on ‘News’wire before this press release? I notice the trains are given as ‘manifests’, which to me at least implies right there they are not “intermodal” — I see the title has been corrected to ‘carload’ on the Wire, but the link and our discussion title are still worded wrong as of the time I write this. The story also clearly mentions Elkhart as one end of the ‘bridge connection’ which should be a help in figuring how connection to CN is made... better still, of course, would have been to have it in the story, but perhaps it’s going to be an article soon.
Perhaps next time it would be wiser just to stick to the actual story, that there’s a press release on existing service, and let the text of the release do the talking, or at least contact NS and CN and flesh out the story with harder details for this railroad-oriented audience.
From SPV's Great Lakes East atlas:
Former EJ&E to Griffith, and then former GTW to Arnold Street in South Bend, thence NS eastward?
Johnny
It is South Bend.
I've noticed an increase in intermodals on the old IC Edgewood Cut-off in southern Illinois. When I say increase, I mean 1 or 2. This line in the post-CN merger, has been almost exclusively coal and general manifests.
It does have to be said that Kalmbach ‘scooped’ Progressive Railroading on this story; the PR version is dated 10/30.
i also notice they left out the (very important!) starting date of this service, and like Kalmbach omit any detail of the routing other than the Elkhart in the press release. In a word: disappointing.
Deggesty From SPV's Great Lakes East atlas: Former EJ&E to Griffith, and then former GTW to Arnold Street in South Bend, thence NS eastward?
This also bypasses NS's Chicago-Porter line bottleneck.
MidlandMike Deggesty From SPV's Great Lakes East atlas: Former EJ&E to Griffith, and then former GTW to Arnold Street in South Bend, thence NS eastward? This also bypasses NS's Chicago-Porter line bottleneck.
Editor Emeritus, This Week at Amtrak
That explains a couple of things. I observe the Chesterton web cam and there have been very regular CN run thru trains which have disappeared.
1. NS train 308 was an eastbound off of the CN which regularly had up to 150 cars...huge train.
2. NS trains 33N and 11R were westbounds which regularly headed to Kirk Yard.
3. These trains had disappeared recently, I figured they were rescheduled for nights...but
4. Last week I heard a CN dispatcher comment to an EB CN crew here in NW Indiana about "qualified to Elkhart". Makes sense now.
There is about 2 miles in South Bend where CN joins NS before heading north to Michigan. It would be a simple run from South Bend to Elkhart Yard. A few years ago when there was construction in Gary, the NS ran a pair of Elkhart - Kirk trains via NS to South Bend then CN to Griffith and up to Kirk. I talked to a NS crewmember who related the movement details.
This makes a lot of sense.
Not sure about symbols for CN or NS yet...anyone know?Ed
How did NS crews get compensated for the loss of work? Or do they? And does anyone know if the railroads revenue division was affected.
Crew availability will be very important. If the NS - CN can work out a crew sharing then trains would not be backed up in the whirlpool of Chicago. May take a bunch of qualifying runs with both RRs crews on other's RR.
How much is CN using the old EJ&E? Is it the primary method for them to bypass Chicago?
MP173 1. NS train 308 was an eastbound off of the CN which regularly had up to 150 cars...huge train.
You're missing out if you think that's a huge train. We're running 240 car trains up here in/out/through Winnipeg.
10000 feet and no dynamics? Today is going to be a good day ...
Electroliner 1935 caldreamer I am glad to see that the railroads are woking to bypass the Chicago bottleneck I don't see "BYPASS" in the agreement, just that the cars will be run-through. Not yarded in Chicago. CN and NS are interchanging two eastbound and two westbound manifest trains daily through greater Chicago, I take this to mean that CN may run their train via the former EJ&E to a connection (not sure where) with NS but not through Clearing. Could connection be at South Bend? I don't think so but not sure where else CN & NS have connections. CSSHEGWISCH, got any ideas?
caldreamer I am glad to see that the railroads are woking to bypass the Chicago bottleneck
It assumes that traffic from the West, in Canada, going to deliver on the East via ND, automatically, goes through the greater Chicago 'bottlenecks'... What is to keep that traffic routed that way? Seems like the NS has multiple crossings of the CN (nee: ICRR) all up and down its ROW. It seems to lead that the first routings (CN via Chicago to NS (Elkhart Yd(?) will not be the only changes to be considered?
Elkhart is definitely a key junction point for Norfolk Southern.
From there traffic can continue east on the old NYC and Pennsylvania all the way to the NY/NJ and Philly areas.
Traffic can also travel east on the NYC and then pick up the former Norfolk & Western to access Virginia.
And traffic can also travel due south from Elkhart through Cincinnati to Atlanta.
If one would consider the CN from Winnepeg to Chicago to Elkhart as a main "stem" off the CN east-west "trunk", those routes branch off to important population centers from Elkhart.
So the idea that it might develop in to more interline with shorter delivery times certainly sounds very reasonable.
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