CN Rail says considering the recent rail shutdown things are running pretty good

The railways have been working to ramp back up following last week's rail shutdown.

CN's Assistant Vice President of Grain, David Przednowek says the process takes some time noting the key to an efficient ramp up or recovery is a very measured and planned ramp down.

He says that involved implementing embargoes so that products (especially toxic, hazardous or dangerous goods) wouldn't be left in transport on the rail line.

Przednowek says it's important to review how everything played out to fully understand the process involved in gearing back up. 

"On August 18th CN announced it would be locking out the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference effective 00:01 ET Thursday, August 22. Essentially, we ran hard all the way right up to the late hours of Wednesday in front of the labour disruption. So we had traffic moving, but it was very much planned and targeted." 

He notes the lockout occurred on August 22nd and then the Minister of Labour made the decision to refer the matter to the Canada Industrial Relations Board under his powers under Section 107 of the Canada Labor Code. 

"CN then initiated its operations recovery plan and we were back up and rolling on the Friday morning. About mid-morning, the TCRC served CN notice of a strike to commence on August 26th. Of course that did not materialize because, on the Saturday evening on the 24th, the CIRB mandated binding arbitration (which during that period prevents any strikes or lockouts through the arbitration period)."

Przednowek says they've been restarting the network adding that when you combine the Western and Eastern Canada region and to the South, if he sees velocity (which is the average number of miles of car travels in a day) north of 205 to 250 things are going well.