The details are clickety-clacking together for CN's massive investment scheduled for northern B.C. this summer.
In an exclusive conversation in April, CN Rail disclosed to The Citizen that big changes were coming to improve the flow of train traffic. The company's national vice-president Sean Finn said that the upgrades were in response to unexpected and sustained cargo demands across Canada. The line between Prince George and Prince Rupert was one of the areas that needed more capacity, he said.
This week, additional CN Rail information brought forth more details about the construction projects. The investment in B.C. alone is set to be about $340-million, and a lot of that in the northern region.
"We are investing for the long haul with these projects to boost capacity and network resiliency to meet growing traffic on our corridors to and from the West Coast and across B.C.," said Doug Ryhorchuk, vice-president of CN's Western Region.
"Our investments in infrastructure, equipment and people will help us deliver superior service to our customers across the province and North America. Additionally, our substantial investments to renew our existing railway infrastructure underscore our commitment to operating safely."
An urgency to upgrade the CN Rail system emerged this winter when massive amounts of cargo - a lot of it perishable organic material like grain, lumber, wood pellets, pulp chips, etc. - got stuck in shipment bottlenecks.
The national economy felt the effects of those commodities stuck in transportation limbo.
The federal Minister of Public Services & Procurement (the Member of Parliament for shipping hub and agriculture-rich Delta) Carla Qualtrough welcomed the attention to cleaning up the backlog by investing in the physical system of rail transportation.
"These major capital investments are a sign of CN's commitment to its operations in B.C., which continues to lead Canada in economic growth," she said. "CN's infrastructure investments this year throughout B.C. will help strengthen local economies, support good middle class jobs and further solidify B.C.'s economic advantage as Canada's Pacific gateway."
Part of CN's plans this summer include constructing new rail lines.
Those include:
Construction of four new sidings (passing lanes for trains) between Prince Rupert and Jasper;
Extension of three existing sidings between Prince Rupert and Jasper;
A siding extension north of Kamloops on CN's Vancouver to Edmonton corridor.
The spending will also be applied to renovations on existing structures. In some cases that includes major changes to the infrastructure. The list includes:
Replacement of approximately 185 kilometres of rail.
Installation of more than 335,000 new railroad ties.
Rebuilds of approximately 50 road crossing surfaces.
Continuation of the multi-year maintenance project on the Fraser River Bridge.
Miscellaneous work on culverts, signal systems and additional track infrastructure.
Val Litwin, president and CEO of the B.C. Chamber of Commerce took notice of the upgrade program on behalf of the province's business community.
"We are pleased to see CN making capital investments in B.C. that will expand our rail network, improve rail service to our businesses providing and supporting thousands of jobs across our provincial economy," Litwin said.
"Strong transportation networks are so important to our trade- and resource-based economy in B.C."
In addition to the infrastructure investments, CN Rail has also committed to boosting its rolling stock and staff.
It was recently announced that CN was in the process of buying 350 new box cars to serve forest products and metals customers; 350 new lumber cars to meet growing demand to move wood products; 1,000 Canadian-built, new generation high-cube grain hopper cars over the next two years to rejuvenate the aging equipment needed to serve increasing annual crop yields; 60 new GE locomotives right away and about 120 more to be in service by the end of 2020.
On the human resources side of the operation, "approximately 1,250 new, qualified conductors will be in the field network-wide before next winter," said a CN spokesperson.
