Canadian Railroads > New Brunswick East Coast Flashback

It was September 23, 2008 and after 10 years of being owned by the Quebec Rail Corp. the ex-ICR line between Riviere du Loup, QC and Pacific Jct, NB was about to be back in the CN fold.  NBEC train 402 was crossing the big fill at Patterson Siding, about 10 miles west of Miramichi, NB.  Today this track is passenger only  (right now, nothing), as CN prefers to service customers in Miramichi from Moncton rather than Campbellton.  NBEC had an interesting mix of ex-CN SD40s and ex-CP RS-18us and C-424s for power.  The steady decline of the paper business in New Brunswick led to the shortline's demise.

CN bought back the property at considerably less than what they sold it for, and also got to run it as an internal shortline.  The last collective agreement the union had negotiated with NBEC was still in place and became the basis of future agreements with CN.  There has been some speculation that existing CMQ employees would automatically get the same wages and benefits as current CP employees in the US and Canada, but this example would suggest otherwise.

GTD



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/20 17:27 by cn6218.

---

Beautiful scene and colours; nice.
Fred