According to a recent Linkedin post by CN's CMO Doug MacDonald. They've had to embargo traffic through the gateway. Seems BNSF is having a difficult time getting traffic cleared. As of now 892 cars are waiting to be picked up by BNSF. CN has another 1,997 cars en-route over the week..
Not sure what the backlog is from, but I'll assume lack of crews to move traffic south to Interbay and beyond.
Mark, Bruce, SD70Dude, Mac, or anyone else in the know your comments will be appreciated.
Yep. It's quite frustrating to have 'no-bills' accumulating in your yard, and is even more frustrating to customers with limited track space. We aren't supposed to pull cars that aren't billed out properly, and some customers can't receive any more cars until we pull the 'no-bills' that CN is refusing to accept the billing for.
This same thing was happening in the leadup to the potential American strike a few months ago, CN was refusing to accept the billing for cars that were destined to American railways.
It snowed in Vancouver a week or two ago and everyone lost their minds. Maybe BNSF hasn't dug themselves out yet.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Don't know what the facts are.
Suspect the billing issues may be concerning forest products and/or consumer agricultural products. In my experience these products get shipped from the Pacific Northwest without having a firm customer and destination at the time of shipping, as the products have yet to be sold to the final consignee. The shipments use reconsignment and diversion to be sold during the trip to the consignee and their location.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
CN has moved a massive amount of lumber and other forest products for decades, and they seem to be well aware of the practices of shippers. For eastbound loads out of Alberta it is common to see them released and billed out only as far as Winnipeg, with the destination being a yard track in Symington and the consignee listed as some abbreviation that looks a lot like "CN Distribustion Services". Gets them on the move for the first few days until the shipper decides on a exact destination.
Over the last few days and during previous embargos I have been able to figure out what to do with the 'no-bills' by talking to our local customers. They know exactly where their cars are going and are sending the billing in properly, but CN is refusing to accept them because they or BNSF apparently can't handle the cars yet.
CN also isn't very good at explaining what is going on to the customers, or for that matter to its own employees. The OP's post was the first I'd heard of this embargo, though I knew something was going on because we'd already been having unusual billing issues for a couple days.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.