Canadian Railroads > Regulator ruling-CN breached its service obligations in Vancouver

Issued April 15, 2019

"The Canadian Transportation Agency (CTA) issued today its determination
on possible freight rail service issues in the Vancouver area
following an investigation launched on its own motion."

"The CTA found that Canadian National Railway Company (CN) breached its level of service obligations"

"The CTA found that Canadian Pacific Railway Company (CP) and BNSF Railway Company (BNSF)...  
had not breached their service obligations."

"The CTA ordered CN to develop and submit a plan to respond  to future traffic surges in the Vancouver area
and to avoid, or minimize, the use of embargoes."
Rules for the "lawful use of embargoes", have also been made.

The full press release -
https://otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/content/cta-determination-freight-rail-service-issues-vancouver-cn-breached-service-obligations

CN immediately launched an appeal of the ruling to the Federal Court of Appeal.
https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2019/04/15/1804410/0/en/CN-to-Appeal-CTA-Decision-on-Service-Obligations.html


The Canadian Transportation Agency had launched the Vancouver Freight Rail Investigation
back on January 14, 2019.
Oral hearings were held in Vancouver on January 29 & 30, 2019.
Numerous written submissions were made.
Two Inquiry reports were issued.
And, on April 15, 2019, a final decision.

Lots and lots of reading material on the "2019 Vancouver Freight Rail Investigation" webpage.
https://otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/2019-vancouver-freight-rail-investigation



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/15/19 21:04 by Marcus.

What did CN embargo?  And who was angry because of the embargo?

MEKoch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What did CN embargo?  And who was angry because
> of the embargo?

Seven specific terminals (mostly handlers of forest products) and five interchanges. Products affected included pulp and crops such as peas and lentils. Embargo of the CN-BNSF interchange owing to congestion there affected shipments of oilseed destined for south of the border, particularly California.

Most were not total embargoes. CN issued permits allowing shipments to embargoed points provided the shipper could obtain formal confirmation from the destination terminal that a specific shipment would be accepted upon arrival, rather than parked indefinitely in railway yards to the detriment of other shippers' traffic.

The complaints were lodged by various shipper associations, not individual shippers, and CN argues that little specific data was provided to back up the complaints. It questions how it can be held in breach of service level obligations (which are contained in contracts with specific shippers) if shippers do not provide data showing how their individual contracts were breached.

As Marcus has indicated in earlier posts, this was the first case in which the CTA used its newly granted power to initiate "own motion" investigations, rather than responding only to specific individual shipper complaints. It will remain for the Federal Court of Appeal to decide the outcome, and it might turn out that the CTA picked the wrong case to "test drive" this new power.