WASHINGTON — The long-simmering Chicago interchange dispute between Canadian National and Canadian Pacific is bubbling over again.
Both railroads continue to exchange cars at the Belt Railway of Chicago’s Clearing Yard, as they have under an August 2019 interim agreement that shifted the interchange location from Spaulding in Bartlett, Ill.
But CN in April told the Surface Transportation Board that the railways couldn’t agree on who should pick up the cost of switching fees for traffic CP delivers to CN at Clearing.
CN then asked the board to issue a declaratory order that would determine two things: Whether CN has the right to designate Clearing as its point to receive interchange traffic from CP, and whether each railroad should bear its own interchange costs, including fees for the Belt Railway’s switching services.
CN says the answer to both questions should be “yes.”
Last week CP told federal regulators that CN legally must provide a reasonable location on its own line where it will receive interchange traffic and then provide CP a free route to that point. Clearing, CP argues, does not meet that standard.
“At its core, this matter is simply a business dispute between two carriers, and the Board should decline to become entangled in such disputes,” CP said in its filing.
If the board decides to step in, CP argues that regulators should issue an order denying CN’s petition.
The railways’ dispute dates to May 2019, when CN unilaterally sought to shift interchange from Spaulding, not far from CP’s Bensenville Yard, to CN’s Kirk Yard, in Gary, Ind., after the railroads could not mutually agree on a new interchange location after months of discussions.
CP asked the STB to intervene, and the board subsequently ordered the railroads into mediation. Those talks failed, however, and the railroads participated in oral arguments before the board in August.
CN and CP reached an interim interchange agreement while they awaited a formal STB decision. Under the terms of the interim deal, CN delivers CP-bound interchange traffic to Bensenville Yard, while CP delivers CN-bound traffic to CN via the Belt Railway of Chicago’s Clearing Yard.
The board on Nov. 29 said CN’s unilateral request to have CP run 84 miles through the busy Chicago terminal in order to interchange at Kirk Yard was unreasonable.
Where the railroads finally decide to interchange under a permanent agreement remains up to the railroads, the board said at the time.
Before the pandemic, the railroads exchanged an average of 83 cars per day in Chicago. CN sought to shift interchange away from Spaulding due to congestion on its increasingly busy single-track main line.
