Does the Canadian government still own some lines?

The Canadian government itself owned lines such as the Intercolonial Railway (Quebec-Halifax) and National Transcontinental Railway (Winnipeg-Moncton). According to Moody's Transportation Manual, 1976, "The lines are owned by the Canadian Government and are operated as part of the Canadian National Railways." Does this arrangement still exist, or was the ownership transferred to CN when it was privatized in 1995?

Without going into a long history of Canadian National and railways in Canada, the simple answer is no. The government didn't retain any rail lines. CN went private lock stock and barrel.

You're right Ken, AND IT WAS A BIG MISTAKE!!!
D/

Why do you say that? What business does the Canadian government have owning the railroad when it can be much more productive and efficient in the private sector?

Milwaukee_F40C wrote:Why do you say that? What business does the Canadian government have owning the railroad when it can be much more productive and efficient in the private sector?

If you need to ask that, you must be from "South of the Line", and please don't take that the wrong way. CN was formed as a "Crown Corporation" until it was foolishly and tragically privatized. Crown Corporations were owned by the Government for the purpose of serving the nation and it's people.

The idea of owning a railroad was supposed to be that the railway SERVED the Nation with affordable, subsidized freight rates and cheap tickets for passengers, rather than a profiteering entity making money hand over fist for a block of investors. It's the damndest concept that's been lost with the twenty-something MBA's; if you drop the price, you can generate MORE revenue by attracting business you potentially drive off with high prices.

In most places until perhaps thirty years ago (many places it hasn't changed), work is/was seasonal. We joke that there are two seasons; Winter and Construction. Well, during the Winter, which in most places north runs from Halloween until Queen Victoria's Birthday (late May), the majority lived off their canned garden goods and money earned the rest of the year. The unemployment check was unheard of by many until around 1970.

Did you know that until the past twenty years, Canada had one of the lowest inflation rates in the industrialized world? Cheap, controlled rates did two things in Canada; 1) It kept the cost of living down. 2) It encouragd commerce by keeping transit cheap. Also, as the population grew, a cheap ticket home for a visit on CN made the prospect of leaving one's geographic area for work in another region more appealing. The objective of CN's creation and existance was to facilitate GROWTH in the Dominion.

Another Crown Corporation formed at the expense of the Canadian Tax Payer was PETRO CANADA, which was also privatized and sold off in recent years. Again, it was formed to SERVE the Canadian People, it was formed after the gas lines and oil embargo in the early 1970's. When Petro Canada was formed, Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau proclaimed that it would be "Sufficient Energy for an Energy Efficient Canada", which became an early buzz-slogan in advertising. The concept (since lost) was, regardless what OPEC did or whatever the world situation was, there was a domestic source of oil, pumped from land owned by the Crown, so Canadians would never get hosed at the pump again.

In the summer of 2008 with gas higher than it has ever been, Canadians were left screaming as to why if it's being pumped out of the ground and refined domestically, it's being sold to Canadians at a price set by a Raghead in Vienna? D O H! It was privatized instead of being held in the interest of the Canadian People. The liquidation of Petro Canada by Ottawa is tantamount to if the White House sold off the Strategic Oil Reserve to China or any other private entity.

OK, something happened, the wrong people got control at the top and socialized medicine has gone down the crapper, CN is run by a bunch of Americans, and petroleum salvation for Canadians is now in foreign hands as well. There's a lesson in that for everybody on both sides of the border.

You asked what business does the Government have in owning a railroad? Depending on the TYPE of government you're talking about, and it's objectives in either serving the populace, or pandering to select special interest groups, I think you will agree EVERYTHING is the answer. Look at the States? Do you really think that Obama and the hacks he's surrounded with know anything about running GM or the banking sector? Again, it depends on the objective of the government.

When things fail, the government is always called in. In the case of Canada, rather then being founded from bankruptcy and failure, the Crown Corporations were formed from scratch to proliferate growth and development, NOT profit. FYI, Air Canada was a Crown Corporation with the same thing in mind; affordable fares to keep people moving. Since it's been privatized, it's gone down the tubes, and I don't know about your experience, but I won't fly it anymore unless I'm stuck without a choice, and given the choice, even when the train price is 2X the air ticket, I will take the train!

CP has always been a private corporation geared for Profit while the objective of creating CN was to SERVE ALL CANADA, and the difference in passenger service amenities for the price was night and day. Look up a fellow named Tommy Douglas;
http://archives.cbc.ca/politics/parties ... lips/3045/
who happens to be the Grandfather of one Kiefer Sutherland. Tommy was the Premier of Saskatchewan, and the architect of Canadian Democratic Socialism and the Canadian Healthcare System, not to be remotely confused with the kind of Democratic Socialism everyone's screaming about on American News Channels these days.

It's a deep subject, but encapsulated, I hope that helps bring the matter into focus a little better.

D/

Excellent Dieter. Nothing like a breath of fresh air in this time of continually gagging from the extreme stench of Global Greed and Profit At All Costs.

Gene B.
Brantford, Ontario, Canada.
Retired from the Canadian National Railways after 37 years on the Signal Department.
Hoping I see the day when the CNR, once proudly owned Canadians, again becomes 'The People's Railway'.

This must be the space to put where the Grand Trunk & the Grand Trunk Pacific went bankrupt. Who knows what ideas went down with the Titanic that may have saved the enterprise.

A better question may be to find if any segments of the Intercolonial, National Transcontinental, the lines north to Churchhill & Hudson's Bay are still in operation?

Clique of One, I thank You! Where's Trudeau when we need him? Don't answer that......

Most people don't understand the government on the other side of the line, regardless which side of the line they're standing on. Where most Canadians don't understand the practice of sacrifice of service and jacked cost in the name of profit, most Americans don't understand the unwillingness most Canadians have to sacrifice service and amenities in the name of profit. Compare a ride on Amtrak and a ride on VIA and you will see exactly what I mean, especially when you want to sit down to a REAL MEAL enbord. The concept of a Crown Corporation is to run at a level to break even, with marginal profits being reinvested into the operational infrastructure. Everybody benefits, and EVERYBODY has MORE $$$ in their pockets in the end.

I would dare say that CN on both sides of the border, are starkly differing entities from each other. All I hear about in Canada is the level of abuse that never existed in the Crown Corporation of CN; job security constantly being threatened, people having their jobs being shuttled all over the country in an affort to force a resignation to spare the almighty investors a pension someone really earned. It's disgusting. I don't hear any of that from CN people Stateside, perhaps that's because it's really STILL the IC. If you pulled on American workers what's being done to CN people in Canada, the Union reps would be screaming and the lawsuits would be flying.

Would I have a problem if the United States Government took over CN Operations in the US? THIS Administration? Absolutely. Would I have a problem if Ottawa took control of CN in Canada and reformed a Crown Corporation out of it? Absolutely NOT, in fact, I WISH THEY WOULD and I wish CN still ran it's own passenger service.

Gwoodle; you mention the Intercolonial Railway. The entire route is still intact from Levis to Halifax, in fact it's the present routing of today's VIA OCEAN. Here's a little history for the infidels;
http://www.theboykos.com/wiki/tiki-inde ... al+Railway

The trackage is again CN property, now we can say; "Nee-NBEC" between Matapedia and Moncton

D/

Dieter wrote:Where most Canadians don't understand the practice of sacrifice of service and jacked cost in the name of profit, most Americans don't understand the unwillingness most Canadians have to sacrifice service and amenities in the name of profit. Compare a ride on Amtrak and a ride on VIA and you will see exactly what I mean, especially when you want to sit down to a REAL MEAL enbord. The concept of a Crown Corporation is to run at a level to break even, with marginal profits being reinvested into the operational infrastructure. Everybody benefits, and EVERYBODY has MORE $$$ in their pockets in the end.

A real meal? You mean they provide a kitchen and supplies so I can cook one? Drifting waaaaay off-topic, this is the sort of thing that makes it seem like passenger trains are not a legitimate mode of travel for the common person who doesn't go out to eat twice a week. The important thing should be good seats, good staff, and prices that match the comparative efficiency versus buses or planes, not whether you can get a bloody filet mignon.

OK, rant over. Now to answer a question, yes, those lines are still present, for the most part, as part of CN. As Dieter says, the ICR is now back to CN, having been CFMG and NBEC. The NTR is CN's main line from Winnipeg to a cutoff to the ex-Canadian Northern north of Longlac Junction, where it has been torn up to Hearst. Then it's Ontario Northland to Cochrane, again gone to La Sarre, CN across central Quebec and over the Quebec Bridge, gone to a point near the norhtern tip of Maine where a cutoff comes in from the ICR, then CN's main line to Moncton. New shortline Hudson Bay Railway operates the old line to Churchill (the port on Hudson Bay).

Ken V wrote:Without going into a long history of Canadian National and railways in Canada, the simple answer is no. The government didn't retain any rail lines. CN went private lock stock and barrel.

While this is true, some of the lines are now federal-government-owned -- namely the lines owned by VIA Rail,which picked up all the lines which CN didn't want for freight service. Copy of the US situation with Amtrak, really. A bunch of other passenger-only lines are now provincially owned (GO Transit mostly). Of course, due to the ill-thought-out privatization, the government is now going to have to pay the CN stockholders to reclaim control of vital routes like the Lakefront line in Toronto.
It will happen, eventually, but what a waste of taxpayer money.

NE2 wrote: A real meal? You mean they provide a kitchen and supplies so I can cook one? Drifting waaaaay off-topic, this is the sort of thing that makes it seem like passenger trains are not a legitimate mode of travel for the common person who doesn't go out to eat twice a week. The important thing should be good seats, good staff, and prices that match the comparative efficiency versus buses or planes, not whether you can get a bloody filet mignon.

I don't understand the equation between food and trains not being a ligitimate form of travel for people on a budget. If you're on a train for more than four hours, chances are you want a meal, not a snack, even on a tight budget. If you're travelling with Seniors or small children, a plate of nachos or a microwave hotdog aren't going to make the grade. Nobody's talking about 3* cuisine or filet mignon, but there's a big difference when you can get a turkey platter, or some form of fish that isn't breaded by Tyson. On Amtrak, I'm relieved when they don't run out of the sacred cheeseburger. On VIA, I can get a balanced meal. It's all in attitude in the conference room where they figure these things out, regardless if it's private sector or a government operation.

Canadian Government owned lines - we shouldn't forget lines owned by the Provinces or those taken over by municipal transit. Nathalie Normandeau, MP in Bonaventure was supporting the failing CFBC line before CN came along. I heard that CFBC was still up in the air, did anybody hear if CN is taking the entire line, or will the line become a ward of the Province, or VIA?

Another thought on "What business does the Canadian Government have in owning a railroad?"; We could only speculate at what they would do with one presently what with the attitude of spinning off everything to raise cash to narrow budget gaps. However, in the case of the United States, if anybody has a problem with the Government running a railroad, look to the success of CONRAIL out of the ashes of multiple bankruptcies. That government did such a good job of restructuring and management, the competition was FIGHTING over who was going to get what. If the same people were involved in the restructuring of GM, in ten years, everybody might want a GM car.

D/

Hmmm - looks like I took your post the wrong way. Sorry about that.

Anyway, it's been argued that Conrail succeeded not because the government took it over but because of regulatory changes; had those come earlier we might have had CSX and NS fighting over Penn Central

And going back to the original topic, there's a subtle distinction between the earlier Canadian Government Railways and NTR on the one hand, and the other CN components, including GT, CNOR, and GTP, on the other hand. In the former case, the government directly owned the lines, which were being operated by the CN; U.S. parallels are the Cincinnati Southern and Western & Atlantic (owned by Cincinnati and Georgia). In the latter case, the government only indirectly owned the lines through its control of CN; a U.S. parallel is the North Carolina Railroad, an actual corporation controlled by North Carolina, and of course Conrail.

NE2 wrote:Hmmm - looks like I took your post the wrong way. Sorry about that.

Anyway, it's been argued that Conrail succeeded not because the government took it over but because of regulatory changes; had those come earlier we might have had CSX and NS fighting over Penn Central

None to worry -- You're also right about regulation changes. i wonder how they got around Conflict of Interest in operating a railroad and changing regulations to suit their needs? Perlman was right, it was the regulations and taxation that was killing our Class 1's, and it took the Gov. getting into the drivers seat to realize it wasn't a Cadillac but a Pontiac. If those regulation changes occured, there may still be a New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroad. As we've seen, New Haven still is alive and well in the form of CDOT.

Anyone know if CN paid taxes to municipalities when it was a Crown Corporation? I'm sure they do now, if they didn't!

Anyway, here's the order transferring the lines to the CN:
http://www.pco-bcp.gc.ca/oic-ddc.asp?la ... h+%2F+List

Privy Council Order in Council No. 1993-1603 (July 22, 1993) wrote:Authority to enter into an Agreement with the CANADIAN NATIONAL RAILWAY COMPANY and to dispose of all right, title and interest in the Canadian Government Railways lands to the Canadian National Railway Company and termination of the management and operations of the lands entrusted to CN.