CN Rail expects full recovery to take up to 4 weeks
Canadian National Railway will take weeks, not days, to recover from the backlog caused by an eight-day strike that ended this week with a tentative deal between the country’s largest railway and Teamsters Canada, the union representing 3,200 conductors and yard workers.
“We’re looking at weeks to recover fully,” Sean Finn, CN’S executive vice-president of corporate services, said in an interview Thursday. “This is a complex network — 21,000 miles of track that at any given time 100,000 rail cars are operating on.”
It’s not yet clear how much the strike will cost CN and its customers, but a CIBC analyst estimated a weeklong strike could cost $180 million for the railway alone. CN shares fell 0.5 per cent on Thursday to $122.25 in Toronto.
During the strike, CN operated its network at about 10 per cent capacity.
It will take between one and four weeks to clear the backlog depending on how far a customer is from an operating yard and how frequently they typically receive service, Finn said.
CN expects it will be more challenging to catch up in Western Canada, the busier portion of its network where ships are waiting at the Port of Vancouver for trains to travel in and out with products to ship.
Despite mining, forestry, propane and agricultural industry groups clamouring for space on the resumed railroad, Finn said CN’S recovery plan is based on moving cars efficiently rather than prioritizing specific commodities.
“You try and make sure you don’t pick winners and losers,” he said. “You have to look at it and say, ‘What’s the most efficient way to move a train?’”
That means not moving trains to block other trains, and looking at commodities that are ready to move and customers that are ready to receive trains. “It’s not as if we’re picking grain versus propane versus potash,” he said. “The priority is given to trains that would be in the way or that we can move very efficiently.”
CN is speaking with customers daily to manage their expectations. It can prioritize their needs in urgent cases. For instance, it shipped two trains of propane from Edmonton to Montreal over the weekend to ease the propane shortage feared by farmers that need fuel to heat barns and dry crops.
The problem isn’t fully resolved but it’s a substantial improvement, Finn said.