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Cold Weather Impacting CN Service

By 250 News

Thursday, January 24, 2008 03:36 PM

The cold snap across Western Canada and the Northern United States is affecting CN railway shipments...

CN Customer Service Director, Melanie Hewson, says "We have deployed additional equipment and staff in order to alleviate the impact of this situation and to ensure the quickest possible return to normal operations."

But Hewson says, "In the interim, customers should expect that affected traffic may be delayed by approximately 24-hours."

She says the extreme cold has an adverse effect on the trains' mechanical and braking systems and CN trains are running at reduced lengths in order to maintain brake line pressure and ensure safe operation.

In addition, Hewson says train safety inspections and preparations are also longer than normal as a result.    


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Posted on Thursday, January 24, 2008 03:36 PM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Comment Posted by: camoose on January 24 2008 8:46 PM
In the days before the change to metric system I recall the Canadian National Railway running trains on the prairies at -50F and doing a fine job of it. There were lfewer derailments also. The thing now seems to be how to make the most money by doing the least. ie inspections, repairs, etc. The whole story is to me a line of verbal diahrea.
Comment Posted by: Palopu on January 24 2008 9:00 PM
Nothing new here. This happens every year that we have cold weather . The real bottleneck is Winnipeg Man.

They never talk about these kinds of delays, or about mud slides etc; when they are hyping the 96 hour run to Chicago.


If anyone cares and I suspect they dont, the first container train made Chicago in 96 hours because it was given preferential treatment. We have had approx 35 trains since then but none make the 96 hour run. In fact some containers take 3 days(72 hours) from the time they are off loaded in Prince Rupert just to get to Prince George.

It seems 96 hours to Chicago is **big news** but 72 hours to Prince George or 168 hours to Chicago doesnt warrant reporting.

As usual we report the **hype** and ignore the facts.

Look at the Article in Prince Rupert Daily news Wednesday Jan 23/08, or Canada.com to get an update on the Port and CN. Makes for interesting reading.