Canadian Railroads > Did EHH consolidate RTCs on CN/CP?

Hunter has made it known that he wants all train dispatchers relocated to the "inground pool" in Jacksonville, FL. Already several dispatchers offices are there.
Did he centralized train dispatching in Canada? If so, how did it work out and are the facilities still centralized?
Thanks!
Andy

When CN took-over BC Rail, the BC Rail RTC's and Crew Dispatchers were re-located to Calder Yard in Edmonton. The "three RTC desks" that BC Rail had were dove tailed into several RTC desks with the CN RTC's in Edmonton. Depending what territory the CN RTC had, they may well have a several of BC Rail subs added to their workload. There was a "swing" weekend RTC job in CN Edmonton that covered three time zones, several BC Rail subdivisions as well as numerous CN subs including branch lines and the mainline in the Winnipeg area. Adding to the misery for the RTC it was the graveyard shift as well as three time zones and three provinces wide.

The crew dispatching of BC Rail crews were just sort of thrown into the fray of the CN Crew Dispatch office, although the BC Rail Crew Supervisor did move / relocate to Edmonton to help with the transition account new territory for the CN crew office as well as different collective agreement wording etc etc.
It was a mess for quite awhile.
Doug



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/11/17 14:04 by hoggerdoug.

Consolidating most of CP's RTC's took place before EHH came along. However, the Montreal office closed in the EHH era.

Much of the train dispatching out of the Montreal office took place in French. Many of the Montreal RTC's said they would quit rather than move to Calgary. In the end, that is what happened, a couple took their pensions and others quit.

CN had RTC Centres in Kamloops, Prince George, Edmonton, Saskatoon, and Winnipeg in Western Canada. The Saskatoon office was relocated to Edmonton in 1993, followed by Kamloops, Prince George, and Winnipeg in 1996. This consolidated control of all CN trackage from the West Coast to Armstrong, ON in Edmonton, with RTC Toronto controlling from Armstrong to Cornwall, ON, and RTC Montreal controlling from Cornwall to Halifax. When the BCR was absorbed into CN, a couple of "Western subdivisions" were transferred to Toronto, so now Edmonton controls up to Dugald, MB, just east of Winnipeg.

As far as CP goes, a lot of Territories have been combined, in many cases doubling the workload of RTCs. In addition to the Montreal office closing and moving to Calgary, interlocking towers were closed in Winnipeg (Rugby) and Calgary (12th Street East) and absorbed into the territories the RTCs control from Calgary.

CN1063

eminence_grise Wrote:
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> Many of the Montreal
> RTC's said they would quit rather than move to
> Calgary. In the end, that is what happened, a
> couple took their pensions and others quit.

I suspect that was the intention, get Montreal folks to quit and hire cheaper new employees. CN did the same thing with their Engineering Dept. in Montreal.

RRTom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> eminence_grise Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Many of the Montreal
> > RTC's said they would quit rather than move to
> > Calgary. In the end, that is what happened, a
> > couple took their pensions and others quit.
>
> I suspect that was the intention, get Montreal
> folks to quit and hire cheaper new employees. CN
> did the same thing with their Engineering Dept. in
> Montreal.

Did they still dispatch the Quebec lines in French from the Calgary outpost?

The issue of doing business in French was a sensitive matter in the 1970s and 1980s in Quebec.

The Montreal territory is still a bilingual job. The company has found it challenging recruiting French speaking RTCs in Calgary.

cn1063 Wrote:
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> The Montreal territory is still a bilingual job.
> The company has found it challenging recruiting
> French speaking RTCs in Calgary.

Thanks.