Striking CP Rail Workers Slowing Traffic in Vancouver, Toronto

By DINA O’MEARA

CALGARY (CP) – Train traffic across Canada stayed on track Wednesday after 3,200 Canadian Pacific Railway maintenance workers walked off the job, the company said, but shippers voiced concerns a prolonged strike could derail their businesses.

CP Rail said the strike, which began across the country Wednesday morning, was not disrupting its tightly scheduled freight runs despite picketers delaying trucks coming on sites in Vancouver and Toronto.

“By slowing traffic by 10 minutes, it’s not going to impact train service,” CP Rail spokesman Mark Seland said.

The company, Canada’s second largest railway, said there were no further talks scheduled with the Teamsters’ Maintenance-of-Way division.

Meantime, shippers raised concerns about the impact a second railway strike in four months would have on their bottom line.

“We could probably go for a few days, if there were service delays and disruptions,” Maureen Fitzhenry, with the Canadian Wheat Board said.

“But when we start getting into a week or more, that’s when things start getting unsustainable.”

CP Rail has contracts to move more than two million tonnes of wheat, barley and other grains from the three prairie provinces before the end of the crop year July 31, she said.