From what I've heard about Tony Ingram, I have great faith in what he can do to help CP. I don't think he'll try to do things that are detrimental to any part of the company.
Ed Harris, however...I have a distrust of anyone who was part of CN's culture of fear and incredible operational failngs in the past decade.
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With Mr. Ingram - Safety will become of paramount importance on CP.
I have no idea of CP's present culture - but with Tony Ingram on the board I am certain employee safety will become item #1. Important to the extent the supervisor heads will roll if they don't buy into the culture of safety.
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Sounds like there will finally be a major reality check round the boardroom table. But their challenge will be to find and move fully competent people into the critical positions. I know they do already exist within the railway ranks, if not necessarily in the present circle of senior managers. Being right can be a career limiting move if it contradicts somebody's pet theories.
Railroads have often suffered from two solitudes. The operating department wants to just run trains and the demands of customers for good service get in the way of a simple operation. Meanwhile Marketing is busily making idealistic promises to get more business, without understanding whether those promises can be achieved. The two sides need to be balanced; the sweet spot will be different for each road and territory.
The two solitudes also exist in the relationship between union labor and management. Perhaps adversarial is too strong a word, but often mutual respect is lacking. But after several days digging out a freight because a distant manager insisted on using the power for it rather than the planned snowplow it is hard to retain respect. Or how about a manager who demanded the train crew had to set out only the single car with a warm bearing from a loaded CWR rail train. I understand after much argument the crew eventually complied with the demand, but of course it took many hours to fix the resulting mess.
William Ackman said he wanted changes at Canadian Pacific, specifically at top Management and the Board of Directors. Today the first changes were announced as two new men were appointed to the Board of Directors. Both are familiar to Trains readers;
First is Mr. Tony Ingram, most recently with CSX, and before that with Norfolk Southern.
The second is Mr. Ed Harris, he was serving as a Consultant to CP which ends with his appointment to the BOD, briefly before that he was Executive Vice President of Operations at CP, and has held the same position at CN.
CP Announcement of changes in BOD
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