Evidence of meeting #36 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was via.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
The Vice-Chair Bloc Mario Laframboise
Mr. Plamondon won't hold it against me if I use some of his time.
As a follow-up to what Mr. Scarpaleggia was saying: Amtrak really does control passenger transport between the hours of 6 a.m. and 5 p.m., and freight transport is done at night.
Could that be done in Montreal? Would it be possible to transport passengers in the daytime and freight at night?
Chief Safety and Transportation Officer, Canadian National
Not easily, sir. Again, one of our objectives as we move through this process is to try to protect the interests not only of the passenger operator but also of the freight. If the ship is late coming into the port of Montreal and the port of Montreal is late getting it loaded, but that traffic has to get to Chicago or Memphis and beyond, quite frankly we need the flexibility to be able to run that train when it's available to us. To put those sorts of restrictions on us, we don't have those now on infrastructure that we own and control. And it's similar to the point that Mr. Bevington made, that we want to move forward with both the freight and the passenger. That would be very difficult.
The reason that Amtrak is able to do that on the corridor is that for most of the 450 route-miles of the corridor there is very little freight. For 30 to 40 miles, there is. It's probably a similar volume to what we see between Toronto and Montreal in terms of train count. They do restrict it just exactly as you say. They're the owner of the infrastructure, and those trains aren't coming from miles and miles around. In most cases they're trains that are being billed at the port of Baltimore to get to where they're going.
So it would be very, very challenging to do that.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know I'm all the way down at the end, but you're doing an excellent job in the chair, I can tell you. I've not seen anybody keep Mr. Jean to such short questions, so you're to be commended already.
Mr. Miller, I'd like to thank you for coming.
You said you have 92% on-time performance for your passenger stops. That's a pretty high number. Are these stops or passengers? What is that based on?
Chief Safety and Transportation Officer, Canadian National
It's based on train arrival at destination.
Conservative
Chief Safety and Transportation Officer, Canadian National
Yes. It's based on the final stop for the route, on the theory that if you left on time and you arrive on time, hopefully your stops are made as well. It's a bit higher, sir, for the commuter operators such as GO Transit, and AMT in Montreal. And for VIA, we're probably more in the 85% range right now.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Still, that's very impressive.
You talked about the contractual incentives to do this. What kinds of contractual incentives are we talking about here?
Chief Safety and Transportation Officer, Canadian National
For example, to use the case of VIA, which is our largest passenger customer, they pay us basically a trackage right fee to operate on our railroad, which we negotiate with them. There is a target percentage on-time performance in the contract. If we go above that, they pay us a little bit more money. If we fall below that we have to rebate some of the money to them, so it's money out of our pocket.
Conservative
Chief Safety and Transportation Officer, Canadian National
Yes, we do that cooperatively with the--
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
What would your on-time performance be for freight rail?
Chief Safety and Transportation Officer, Canadian National
In terms of trip plan, it's a different measure. It's not train arrival; it's arrival of the car at the customer's siding. It's about 92% now. And I know you'll ask, “Well, how could it be higher?” That is based on a car that's picked up at a local yard, switched at an intermediate yard, put on a long-haul train or two, and it has had several switching events, so there is an ability to meet that trip within all of those portions.
The freight train arrival on-time percentage right now is about 78%.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Okay. That's interesting.
There is one other thing I want to comment on. You talked about the expansion of rail sidings and longer sidings in western Canada. Could you table with the committee a list of those? Because all I've heard about are the 53 sidings that CN is shutting down in western Canada.
Chief Safety and Transportation Officer, Canadian National
Yes, we would be happy to do that.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Thank you.
Now, when you talk about a dedicated, fenced right-of-way, it seems to make sense. It seems it would be the safest, most efficient way to go about bringing passengers on and off. But it strikes me that there must be a cost to this. This would be new infrastructure. Any idea what the cost would be?
Chief Safety and Transportation Officer, Canadian National
I don't know. I know that Transport Canada, Ontario, and Quebec are updating a study. My suggestion would be that you ladies and gentlemen might want to have a look at that when it's prepared. It's multi-million dollars per month.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Surely your organization has had some talks about cost-sharing and what you're going to participate in.
Chief Safety and Transportation Officer, Canadian National
Not that I'm aware of.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Would it be reasonable to talk about the cost-sharing and infrastructure? One of the problems that I've experienced with some of the rails is that the Government of Canada, the people of Canada, build these things but then have little say when they start getting shut down. A little bit of flesh in the game would ensure that these things are built to your—
Chief Safety and Transportation Officer, Canadian National
If it's a dedicated right of way, I'm not sure that I'd see our having any flesh in that game. As for flesh in the game, overall, in freight railroading ours is about $1.5 billion to $1.8 billion a year.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Not being a member of the committee, I'm totally off the wall here. If it was a dedicated right of way and you didn't have any flesh in the game, then would it not make more sense for there to be a bidding process to see who gets to run these right of ways?
Chief Safety and Transportation Officer, Canadian National
That would be a decision for you ladies and gentlemen to make. You have a capable, experienced passenger operator in VIA Rail Canada.
Conservative
Chief Safety and Transportation Officer, Canadian National
Yes, if there were private companies that wanted to entertain it, they should probably be afforded the opportunity.