Canadian Railroads > Changes on former TH&B

Received an email in a round about way. CP has put the TCRC (LE and CTY) union on notice that it will start running "Expedited Service Runs" between London and Toronto to Buffalo, no later than Dec 17 or sooner. Wondering if the last of the protected TH&B employee(s) is retiring or taking a buyout. Would appear that there will be no more crew changes at Kinnear or Aberdeen yards in Hamilton. Anybody have any other details or info??? Doug

CSX will not accept trains at Fort Erie for the run across Buffalo to NS's Bison Yard if the crew has less than 5 hours to work.

My information is that crews will run Toronto or London to Welland, with turn jobs to Buffalo working from there.

We'll see how this plays out, but Hunter Harrison will try anything. His typical perspective is "just do it". When things fall apart he rewinds to wherever the balance is (usually).

Bill Miller
Galt, ON

My own experience with Hunter and his gang, "lets hoist this up the flag pole and see how it flies". Look what he did for BC Rail. I can see that this thread is derailed already!!! Doug

Sorry to be the curmudgeon....but you are giving EHH too much credit. It didn't take much evil genius to spot this one.

The Hamilton terminal sits in the middle of a ridiculously short district. It should have been gone long ago. Trains can make it over this territory if they are well run. The short runs hid a lot of foibles and early quits that won't stay hidden with the longer runs.

The fact that the Green Team didn't make this change years ago is one good reason why they needed to go.

I do hope everyone keeps their job somehow, but this move is good business. Progress happens.

- Paul

Perhaps I did not phrase my question with the opening thread line. With the "expedited run through" service, I was wondering if perhaps the last TH&B employee(s) that had "homestead rights" are or will be retiring soon. Perhaps due to "collective agreements" the trains from Hamilton to Welland or beyond have to be manned by TH&B employees. I can recall my few trips on the "Montrose Job" FT1 - TF2, TH&B crew onduty at Montrose, wait for the train to arrive from Frontier yard, we took it to Kinnear yard, traded off with a CP crew with a train from Agincourt and returned to Montrose. The TH&B was the "backdoor" for CP and NYC for cross border movements.
Yes, it does make sense for crews to run through Hamilton, just wondering if the last protected employee is going soon as well as the homestead rights to man the trains between Hamilton and Welland. I never did hear what happened to the TH&B employees and collective agreements after CP Rail took over the operation in 1984(?). Doug

I can only think of one "protected man" with prior rights, and he's not even working out of Hamilton. He's probably only 50 too.

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