The apparent end of lockouts at CPKC and Canadian National is not bringing an immediate return for commuter rail service halted by the labor dispute.
Commuter lines suspended Thursday in Vancouver, Toronto, and Montreal will remain out of service today (Friday, Aug. 23) despite the government order to send the dispute between the railroads and Teamsters Canada Rail Conference to binding arbitration.
In Vancouver, the West Coast Express line, which serves about 3,000 passengers daily, remains suspended “until CPKC advises that the service can operate on their tracks again,” parent agency TransLink said in an advisory posted on its website on Thursday evening. A CPKC statement on Thursday said the railroad was preparing to resume operations but would not offer more specifics until it received the order from the Canada Industrial Relations Board.
Similar suspensions continue in the Toronto area, where GO Transit’s Milton Line and Hamilton GO station will remain closed, and Montreal, where three of commuter operator Exo’s five lines have been shut down. All those operations involve CPKC lines or dispatching. The Milton Line — a Monday-Friday, peak-period-only operation — and Hamilton station serve about 8,100 passengers daily, the Canadian Press reports; the Exo lines handle more than 21,000 per day.
Exo said it would began offering limited shuttle-bus alternatives on Monday if rail service still has not resumed, but they would be limited to rush-hour service and only part of the rail routes because of the agency’s “limited financial and operational capacity.”
While Canada’s Labor Minister, Steven MacKinnon, ordered the railroads to resume operations as well as sending the two sides to arbitration, it is unclear how quickly operations will actually resume. The TCRC said it would keep picket lines up while it reviewed the action and received legal counsel, and the CIRB still must act on MacKinnon’s request [see “Canada’s labor minister orders arbitration …,” Trains News Wire, Aug. 22, 2024].
