WASHINGTON – Canadian Pacific has asked federal regulators to intervene in an interchange dispute with Canadian National, which wants to shift where the railroads exchange traffic in Chicago.
CN aims to move the interchange from Spaulding in Bartlett, Ill., not far from CP’s Bensenville Yard, to CN’s Kirk Yard in Gary, Ind., effective May 10.
CP opposes the move and argues that CN cannot unilaterally shift the interchange. This week CP asked the Surface Transportation Board to declare Kirk Yard an unreasonable interchange location and to issue a preliminary injunction to keep the interchange at Spaulding until an acceptable agreement can be reached.
The STB on Wednesday ordered CN to reply to CP’s requests by May 6.
CP and CN have been exchanging traffic at Spaulding since 2010, when they consolidated their Chicago Terminal interchange at one location under a single agreement after CN’s acquisition of the Elgin, Joliet & Eastern. CP and CN lines intersect at Spaulding, 17.2 miles west of Bensenville Yard.
CP delivers an average of 36 cars per day to CN, while CN delivers an average of 47 cars to CP. Scrapping the interchange agreement without an alternative in place would quickly congest Bensenville Yard and harm shippers, CP told the STB.
CN Chief Operating Officer Mike Cory contends that Spaulding is no longer an efficient interchange location because switching ties up its single-track main line, which leads to congestion on CN’s system and blocks area grade crossings.
CN and CP have been discussing moving the interchange since last year but have been unable to agree on a location.
Alternates included CN’s former Gulf, Mobile & Ohio Glenn Yard; Bensenville; and the Belt Railway of Chicago’s Clearing Yard. But the railroads could not agree how to split costs, including trackage rights over BRC and the Indiana Harbor Belt, or overcome potential operating difficulties at any of the alternate interchange points.
CN informed CP in March that it planned to cancel the interchange agreement and move the interchange to Kirk Yard, its main Chicago-area facility, effective May 10.
CP immediately objected.
“Interchange at Kirk Yard is unworkable and unreasonable,” Robert Johnson, CP’s executive vice president of operations, wrote in an April 3 letter to Cory. “Kirk is located on the opposite side of the Chicago Terminal from CP’s Bensenville Yard. CP has no assignment which goes there or near there.”
It’s a roundtrip of 200-plus miles from Bensenville to Kirk – including 168 miles on CN – that would require multiple crews, CP contends.
Cory, in an April 16 letter to Johnson, argued that interchanging at Spaulding places an unfair burden on CN.
“Manifest traffic interchanged between CN and CP are blocked and switched at Kirk Yard and then moved to Spaulding – a trip that is 84 miles one-way,” Cory wrote. “CN is currently doing that work now for both interchange cars received from CP and for interchange cars delivered to CP. This is inherently inequitable.”
Johnson replied two days later, noting that CN was free to change the interchange location but not at CP’s expense. “That’s only fair,” he wrote.
CP’s 40-page filing with the STB, which includes maps and letters exchanged between the railroads, is available online.
All this story is missing is Ewing H Harrison’s name.
If CN would put in a by pass main next to its Spaulding yard there would be no main line tie up!
Cn runs from Joliet to Spaulding daily for the interchange. At joliet the cars are added to the kirk-joliet train
Stare at the map. Pythagoras would say NSX and CN need to be connected near BNSFs Corwith Yard some decade soon. I-90 should run from the Skyway to the Strangler as well.
It’s so simple. Interchange at the IHB LaGrange Yard. It’s half way in between. If CN is late making their pickups, CP is off the hook. CN wants to use the J line as a through Chicago Bypass, not to switch anything.
Is CN having to run out to Spaulding from Kirk?
Stephen Roberts
If there was “such concern”, then why the heck not agree to interchanging around Detroit when the lines are so much closer together?
Flat Rock is out of the way where CN’s ex-DT&I classification yard is located. East Yard is cramped, no room at BOC (Hamtramck), or Melvindale (NS Oakwood Yard) There’s no good location or capacity for CP and CN to interchange here in Detroit either. They could interchange in Windsor though… If it really came down to it..
Just another railroad urination contest. Each carrier wants something for nothing – situation normal.
I worked for the Canadian Pacific (Soo Line) as a locomotive engineer at Bensenville Yard. My last year before I retired from the RR industry saw me going to Spaulding at least twice a week. At that time, things really were congested at Spaulding yard whereby often putting away our cars for the CN was getting to be an exercise in creative switching since the CN would frequently not pull the cars from the day before. A number of times we just had to return to B’ville with our complete train for the CN as there was no room left in the yard. Over the years while I worked at Bensenville, we’d interchange with the CN at their Markham, Glenn or Hawthorne yards. The one yard of these three that was easily reached round trip from Bensenville was Glenn yard operating over the Indiana Harbor Belt for most of the trip.
Well, the ‘J’ used to interchange with CP at Roundout. Why not give that a try? And what would be so hard running a Bensenville to Hawthorne transfer via the Belt?
Chris
Amazing, two Canadian railroads having a spat about operating problems in Chicago, IL USA.
Just a side note, this about cars not railroads. “BOC” in Braden K.’s post means Buick – Oldsmobile – Cadillac, a long-forgotten marketing division of General Motors. There was a time when GM’s Hamtramck Assembly on GTW (now CNR) was signed Buick – Oldsmobile – Cadillac. Built around 1980, the Hamtramck plant is announced to be closing.
Hamtramck is along with Highland Park one of the two separate cities right in the middle of Detroit. CN’s Detroit – Pontiac – Flint main line is the city line between the two enclaves.
I am no expert, but it seems that by re-configuring the west wye track you could create a direct connection between the two interchange yards that would allow a train to move cars between the yards without fouling the main. Not that it would be free, and operationally I may be way off base.
Steven, it would be 47 CN-bound cars that would collect at Bensenville every day if the interchange agreement was cancelled and there wasn’t a new one to take its place. That’s 329 cars a week if the agreement lapsed and no interchange routing was found. So you can see they’d get plugged quickly. Bill
46 cars a day will plug Bensenville? Are you kidding? The yard is half empty now! And isnt this the same yard that the hatchet forces said wasnt needed when they swooped in and took control of the CP, only to turn around and say it was a vital link and asked for more money when the state tried to get access to some of the land for its expressway project?
Clearing seems like the best compromise. Both roads have trains that work there and could carry interchange blocks to and from Kirk or
Bensenville. And the distances are similar.
Does CN retain rights into Clearing from the ex-GTW line into Clearing’s east end that has been transferred to CSX ownership?
Gerald, Right you are! The larger point is this: Both railroads would face a backlog of cars that would build up in their yards in the event the interchange agreement were allowed to lapse. That’s unlikely, and you’ve got to think that CP and CN would reach an agreement on their own rather than have the STB impose one.
I just looked at a couple of maps of both CN and CP. CP, I think, is crazy for what they believe is a no-go thing. If there was “such concern”, then why the heck not agree to interchanging around Detroit when the lines are so much closer together? There are other ways to solve the issue, but evidently upper management is not very creative at either CN or CP.
Bill Stephens,
Steven Bauer is correct, based on this quote from the article “CP delivers an average of 36 cars per day to CN, while CN delivers an average of 47 cars to CP.” CP delivers 36 cars to CN per day, that is what CP would be holding in Bensenville, just as CN would need to hold their 47 cars per day they deliver to CP, so that’s 252 cars per week CP delivers to CN, vs 329 that CN delivers to CP. Essentially CN would need to find room for 77 additional cars per week to hold somewhere…and this is obviously all about money and not about the freight itself.
Neither railroad wants to pay the cost to send the cars through the BRC or IHB, which is not too surprising. Maybe they could use Schiller Park. It is close to Bensenville and CN can work it without impacting any mainline traffic, but there is almost nothing left there from a CN perspective.