Railroads & Locomotives Railroad Profiles Class Is Canadian Pacific Railway profile

Canadian Pacific Railway profile

By Angela Cotey | November 1, 2022

| Last updated on January 18, 2023

The historic Canadian Pacific Railway serves most of Canada but also reaches Chicago and certain north-central US cities

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A Canadian Pacific heritage locomotive appears in Iowa in 2019.
Steve Smedley

Canadian Pacific summary

Canadian Pacific Railway Limited is a railroad holding company based in Calgary, Alberta. Its subsidiary Canadian Pacific Railway Company (CP) extends over about 12,700 route miles from British Columbia to New Brunswick, connecting ocean ports with the U.S. Midwest and principal cities such as Chicago, Minneapolis, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver.

CP is primarily an east-west railroad moving freight between the U.S. Midwest and central Canada to Pacific Ocean ports. It competes with Canadian National in Canada and to a lesser extent BNSF Railway and Union Pacific in moving imported intermodal goods to the central U.S. The railroad connects with five other Class I railroads in Chicago and with railroads through other cities such as Detroit and Buffalo in the U.S. and in Toronto and Montreal, in Canada. It employed 12,694 workers at the end of 2019.

Canadian Pacific logo

History

The CP was Canada’s first transcontinental railroad, completed in 1885. The company expanded throughout the 20th century, developing energy, shipping, airline, and hotel businesses. Reorganized in 1971, the railway operated as a subsidiary of parent company Canadian Pacific, Ltd., until October 4, 2001, when it was spun off as a separate entity, the Canadian Pacific Railway, Ltd.

CP owns the 5,139-mile Soo Line Railroad, which runs from Chicago through Milwaukee and Minneapolis to Duluth and two points on the Canadian border, one near Winnipeg and one in Saskatchewan. As a long-time owner of 56% of the Soo Line, Canadian Pacific became its full owner in 1990. Although the Soo technically remains a separate corporation, it is operated as part of the CP system. The railroad’s lines in the eastern U.S. belong to the Delaware & Hudson, which dates from 1823 and claims to be the country’s oldest continuously operating transportation company.

See Canadian Pacific’s predecessor railroads, or family tree!

Keith Creel, Canadian Pacific CEO. Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd.

Executive officers (as of November 2022)

  • Keith E. Creel — President and Chief Executive Officer
  • Nadeem S. Velani — Executive Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer
  • Mark Redd — Executive Vice-President Operations
  • John Brooks — Executive Vice-President and Chief Marketing Officer
  • Tracy L. Miller — Senior Vice-President Operations Southern and Eastern Region
  • Justin Meyer — Senior Vice-President Engineering and Mechanica
  • Laird Pitz — Senior Vice-President and ​Chief Risk Officer​​
  • Jeffrey J. Ellis — Chief Legal Officer and Corporate Secretary
  • James Clements — Senior Vice-President Strategic Planning and Technology Transformation
  • Greg Squires — Senior Vice-President Operations Western Region
  • Jason M. Ross — Vice-President Operations Southern Region
  • Ben Serena — Vice-President Operations Eastern Region
  • Nicholas C. Walker — Vice-President Operations Western Region
  • Joan Hardy — Vice-President Sales and Marketing — Grain and Fertilize
  • Coby Bullard — Vice-President Sales and Marketing — Merchandise, ECP, Intermodal and Automotive
  • Jonathan Wahba — Vice-President Commercial Integration
  • Mike Mohan — Vice-President Sales and Marketing — Regional Sales and Transload
  • Mike Foran — Vice-President, Market Strategy and Asset Management
  • Chad Rolstad — Vice-President Human Resources and Chief Culture Officer
  • Pam Arpin — Vice-President and Chief Information Officer
  • Maeghan Albiston — Vice-President Capital Markets
  • Ian Gray — Vice-President Financial Planning and Accounting

History provided by Matt Van Hattem.

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