CP consolidated its Chicago intermodal operations at its terminal at Bensenville Yard in 2012. The former Soo Line facility at Schiller Park remained in use as a container storage yard, spokesman Andy Cummings says, but on March 12 was reopened as a terminal for inbound intermodal shipments.
CP’s intermodal volume is up 7.7 percent this year based on units carried, but is up 11.8 percent on a revenue ton-miles basis, the favored metric of the Canadian railways.
The move to activate Schiller Park as an intermodal terminal comes a few weeks before CP will begin hauling the bulk of Ocean Network Express international traffic out of the Port of Vancouver in British Columbia.
Beginning April 1, CP will begin carrying 85 percent of the Ocean Network Express traffic at the Port of Vancouver. Ocean Network Express, or ONE, is the new combination of shipping companies K-Line, MOL, and NYK.
CP currently handles K-Line traffic, which represents a third of the consortium’s business in Canada. CN, meanwhile, currently carries MOL and NYK containers.
As a recently retired CP/Soo Line engineer that use to work at Schiller Park, I wonder if the Canadian Pacific/Soo Line will bring back Job G33 (or new letter-number designation), the old 22:30 Schiller Park to Bensenville to Schiller Park intermodal car shuttle. If so, they’ll probably need a caboose again for the back up moves into Bensenville and then back into Schiller Park.
Paul Bouzide, I was just wondering how CP would get to Schiller Park. Either movement could tie up the Milwaukee District and North Central Service to O’Hare Airport that takes only 33 minutes from Union Station with four intermediate stops, not much more than the mayor’s goal. This makes a holdout siding at Rondout for increased Hiawatha service all the more important.
And natch, one of the very first things CP/Soo did upon getting hold of B’ville yard was flatten it. Reminds me of the old Soo guys pontificating as we ran the wrong way down the CM main, or the UP’s swallowing the SP, or various foreign policy US fiascos.
CP used Schiller Park for container traffic to/port of Montreal until around 2012 (trains 142-143, formerly 152-153, and before that 502-503). Most of this traffic was lost to CN since and the remainder of the business went to Bensenville.
JOEL – This is the first I knew CP Rail owned Schiller Park. CP subsidiary Soo Line spun off the route 30 or 31 years ago to Wisconsin Central.
Sounds good. Isn’t Schiller Park on the CN’s former WC line? Does CP have trackage rights access?
Charles – CP has always owned Schiller Park yard, the only the thing the WC owned was the old passenger main around the yard. WC got its own yard to the north of the tollway when the Metra project started.
CP’s yard closed when Hunter Harrison took over. They do have rights from B12 to the yard over the WC.
It’s a painful and time consuming reverse move into Schiller Park for trains from the west of they are routed via Bensenville. But if whole trains are instead routed via Tower A5 into Schiller, that pain is avoided.