Intermodal to Saint John

Saw on another side that Hapag-Lloyd and Maerak are joining up to form Global Enterprises as of Jan 25. The site is usually pretty reliable. They say that they will have major ports on all continents. Who knows what this means to SJ and Halifax.

Mr. NHV, even if only a "one a day", it appears that the CP-M is "healthy" - and without handling stuff that can go "boom".

Now let's all hope that when Chessie has more than "two metal sticks in the mud" up that way (also of interest to Mr. Irving's two roads), that Saint John will become more attractive to the maritime companies and the "choice of one road or the highway" offered at Halifax.

It sounds like there still will not be any increase in traffic on CPKC/Irving for the foreseeable future. Unless the port of Montreal goes on strike. And as others have stated, 120/121 have been cut back to 5-6 days a week (probably not due to problems at Vanceboro).

Not necessarily 100% on topic, but I heard G16 (NMJ-BVJ turn) will be getting cut back in the near future. The intent is for them to only run as needed, which at this point with just the Searsport and NMJ traffic, along with maybe 10 cars a week off CSX, they could get away with just running one job per week with 6 axles. I was told the crew would be on the spare board the rest of the time.

Over the weekend I got to go down to Brownville Jct on Friday and Sunday night (perks of having a camp on Ebemee Lake). Both nights CPKC was extremely late, not arriving until almost or after 9 PM. And then switching until midnight, at which point the EMR crew which had been on duty for several hours, were finally let into the yard. This made EMR 120 so late both nights, they could have probably had the meet at BVJ as counterpart EMR 121 had been sitting in the siding at Kirby about the same time CPKC finally let them into the yard.
Last night was also a mess, CPKC was tardy again and the crew of 120 ran out of time at MP4 and had to be recrewed. Meanwhile on the Irving side of the river, CPKC had called Irving and Irving had called a crew in two hours ahead of CPKC's expected arrival. However by the time CPKC finally showed up, the EMR crew wouldn't have had enough time to make it to McAdam with a pick up enroute, so after several hours that crew was instructed to drive to McAdam and rest, so they could be used for a Millinocket bound fiber extra today. A second crew was called for 10 PM and they sat around until after midnight waiting for CPKC to finish switching. CPKC's head end was stretched beyond the EMR Route 11 crossing, so I am guessing they still had quite a bit of switching to do. Had the long yard tracks not been plugged with CPKC bound traffic, EMR probably could have had the meet right there once they finally got on their train.

I watched 909 today, as they switched Mattawamkeag. The crew mentioned something about no west bound on CPKC tomorrow, so we will see if that holds true.

CPF66 wrote: ↑Mon May 13, 2024 8:57 am It sounds like there still will not be any increase in traffic on CPKC/Irving for the foreseeable future. Unless the port of Montreal goes on strike. And as others have stated, 120/121 have been cut back to 5-6 days a week (probably not due to problems at Vanceboro).

Not necessarily 100% on topic, but I heard G16 (NMJ-BVJ turn) will be getting cut back in the near future. The intent is for them to only run as needed, which at this point with just the Searsport and NMJ traffic, along with maybe 10 cars a week off CSX, they could get away with just running one job per week with 6 axles. I was told the crew would be on the spare board the rest of the time.

Over the weekend I got to go down to Brownville Jct on Friday and Sunday night (perks of having a camp on Ebemee Lake). Both nights CPKC was extremely late, not arriving until almost or after 9 PM. And then switching until midnight, at which point the EMR crew which had been on duty for several hours, were finally let into the yard. This made EMR 120 so late both nights, they could have probably had the meet at BVJ as counterpart EMR 121 had been sitting in the siding at Kirby about the same time CPKC finally let them into the yard.
Last night was also a mess, CPKC was tardy again and the crew of 120 ran out of time at MP4 and had to be recrewed. Meanwhile on the Irving side of the river, CPKC had called Irving and Irving had called a crew in two hours ahead of CPKC's expected arrival. However by the time CPKC finally showed up, the EMR crew wouldn't have had enough time to make it to McAdam with a pick up enroute, so after several hours that crew was instructed to drive to McAdam and rest, so they could be used for a Millinocket bound fiber extra today. A second crew was called for 10 PM and they sat around until after midnight waiting for CPKC to finish switching. CPKC's head end was stretched beyond the EMR Route 11 crossing, so I am guessing they still had quite a bit of switching to do. Had the long yard tracks not been plugged with CPKC bound traffic, EMR probably could have had the meet right there once they finally got on their train.

Traffic has increased and the playbook is always the same-- decrease train starts and increase train length. Don't confuse the two, CP is back to running trains 10K feet or more... so the reduce starts and leaving tonnage behind to ensure trains at max is what you're seeing. It's counter intuitive as you run a 7 day a week service to bolster service and grow the biz but reduce starts when you have too much traffic to maximize revenue...PSR basically emulating the airline model