As a result, CN’s key operating metrics are improving and costs are being reduced as trains move faster and cars spend less time in yards, Chief Financial Officer Ghislain Houle told an investor conference on Tuesday.
CN has returned two dozen of the oldest and least reliable of the 130 locomotives it leased this year, Houle says.
CN is taking a go-slow approach to returning the rest of its leased fleet, Houle says. The railroad wants to ensure it has enough power on hand during winter, when cold weather reduces train lengths and can require traffic to move on additional trains.
But once spring arrives, CN will move aggressively to return leased locomotives, Houle says.
CN is taking delivery of 60 new General Electric units this year. And by the end of March it’s scheduled to receive the first 70 units of 140 GE locomotives on order for 2019.
CN plans to spend about another $400 million or so on Western Canada capacity projects next year to keep up with anticipated traffic growth, Houle says.
The 2019 capital budget is not yet finalized, he says, but CN is likely to concentrate on adding track capacity in its busy corridor between Edmonton, Alberta, and Winnipeg, Manitoba.
“This is the place we need more capacity,” Houle says.
Earlier this year, executives said that over the long term CN’s Edmonton-Winnipeg spine will be double-tracked.
CN spent a record amount this year to add 60 miles of double track and seven new or extended passing sidings in Western Canada. It also added a section of double track and two passing sidings on the Winnipeg-Chicago corridor and expanded yards in Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Wisconsin.
This year’s round of capacity expansions was necessary after CN had great traffic growth in Western Canada in the second half of 2017.
The traffic swamped CN, which was caught short of crews, locomotives, and track capacity. Service suffered and CEO Luc Jobin was replaced by Chief Marketing Officer Jean-Jacques Ruest in March.
Houle spoke at the Scotiabank Transportation & Industrials Conference.
They also added Welby to spy hill and Cana( now cariati) to Waldron. As well as extending yard tracks in Melville.
Does anyone know where the double track was built and the sidings extended? As info I was up in MB and there is now double track starting just west of the old Brandon North station (Knox to Levine???)