Transport Committee on Nov. 16th, 2009

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd just like to say welcome to Mr. Plamondon, first of all. I wanted to let him know that there is a community in my riding, actually, called Plamondon, which was settled by persons with that name. Indeed, I was there last week. I made an announcement about investing in their arena, and they were very pleased to receive government funding for that.

Ten miles away is a community called Lac La Biche, and I have a question specifically for our guests today in relation to that community.

I met with the council of Lac La Biche last week, and they had a specific question in relation to CN. As you know, CN now has a yard in the community itself. Their interest is safety and efficiency in the community. They have two crossings, and when a train comes through town, it actually cuts the town in half. It cuts the community in two, as it does in many communities across the country. Their question to me was whether CN would consider closing the yard and moving it to another location just outside of town if there were some ability to trade land or trade some sort of equity position with the town. Right now you are making an investment in that track of $130 million. Would CN consider something like that at this stage?

[Paul Miller]

Sir, we'd definitely consider it. As I mentioned to you when we were speaking, I haven't been up to that part of the country in quite some time, so I am not very familiar with it. I've been through Lac La Biche on the train a grand total of once. But yes, we would definitely consider that and see if something could be worked out that would meet the needs of the community and also, hopefully, keep us more or less whole on the financial side. We'd be happy to do that. They could call me directly, or I could call them on my return to the office.

[Brian Jean, Conservative, Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Miller. I'll let them know that, because they're very interested in that. They are concerned about the safety issues on an ongoing basis, as I think many communities are across the country.

Those are all my questions. Merci.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, Mario Laframboise]

Mr. Scarpaleggia, five minutes.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The passenger line from Montreal to Ottawa, Montreal to Toronto--that's along the CN line?

[Paul Miller]

Montreal to Ottawa is along CN to Coteau, Quebec. Then VIA owns most of the route from Coteau to Ottawa.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Is that right?

[Paul Miller]

Yes. It's our former Alexandria subdivision.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

But there are freight trains that go out there?

[Paul Miller]

There's very limited freight service out there. And it's six passenger trains, I believe, in each direction per day.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

It's dedicated basically to passenger trains.

[Paul Miller]

Well, we have trackage rights or running rights from them so that we can operate our freight service. By and large, though, yes; at a guess, I'd say 85% of the train traffic out there is passenger train traffic.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Montreal to Toronto is all CN, I gather.

[Paul Miller]

Yes, sir.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

When you take the train from Toronto into downtown Montreal, it gets pretty congested there, at I think Pointe-Saint-Charles.

[Paul Miller]

Yes. There's a lot of activity there.

Of course, you're into a number of interlockings and higher degrees of curvature. For those last four to six miles, as you go into Montreal, the zone speed is 40 miles per hour or 45 miles per hour, I believe. There would be a permanent slow order at a lower speed than that. Then, depending on whether your train had to cross over to avoid another train, you could be down to 25 miles per hour, and in some cases even 15 miles per hour.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

If there was a dedicated high-speed line--you know, real high-speed--between, say, Toronto and Montreal, that last leg going through the city would be just like a regular passenger train. Could it share track in that segment with freight, or would we have to look at expropriating homes and so on?

[Paul Miller]

The nub of your question, of course, is all about trip time and what trip time you can accommodate. Whether it's at 70 miles per hour through that territory is probably less important than what the total trip time is from Toronto to Montreal.

We would certainly work very closely with whoever the passenger operator was to try to find a way to get them in there, commensurate with the needs of the schedule. Whether that would be even a single dedicated track, a way to keep the other trains out of the way.... But your initial point is exactly correct. It is a tough spot going through there.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

If a dedicated track were built between, say, Toronto and Montreal, it would be built on CN land? The corridor of the land that you own is wide enough?

[Paul Miller]

Generally not; the corridor out in the countryside is typically 90 feet to 100 feet wide. Depending on the height of the embankment, there's pretty much a two-to-one side slope on the embankment. It's easily 50 feet or 60 feet up, in some cases probably 70 feet, of that 90 feet to 100 feet. Of course, by and large it goes down the middle, so what you're left with is on either side.

To illustrate the point, for the third track that we're building with VIA and with the funding from the Government of Canada, we've had to acquire land just to build one track, not the whole separate dedicated route for electrified positive train control, fenced territory.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Sorry--where will that third track run again?

[Paul Miller]

There are three sections, all west of Brockville. The Brockville to Toronto section has both the Toronto-Ottawa trains and Toronto-Montreal trains. It's three sections in total, and I believe it's a total length of 42 miles.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

Could that be incorporated into a dedicated system, or are we now locked into a system with that third track that we can't get out of without wasting the investment?

[Paul Miller]

I wouldn't want to say “locked in”, but it's not built, and it could not be built, with the idea of running a lot faster than you are on a track that's a 15-foot track centre away. It's being built to the same standard as the Kingston subdivision.

[Francis Scarpaleggia, Liberal, Lac-Saint-Louis, QC]

My time is up.