CP Rail is experiencing a critical breakdown in their overall network.  CP's containers from Asia are piling up in Vancouver due to increased volume and a shortage of intermodal railroad cars.  As of Monday 35 intermodal trains worth of containers were sitting on the ground in Vancouver. Earlier this year, CP declared force majeure on their grain business, and recently did the same thing for their automotive division.  CP has not only had to cope with normal increases in international traffic, but saw increased volumes from customers switching over after CN Rail instituted stricter free time and storage charges at their terminals.  Most recently CP volumes surged as shippers tried to avoid CN during the CAW strike.

In contrast, CN's operations in and out of Vancouver are fluid and there is currently no backlog.  CN is under tremendous pressure to take on some of the CP volume to assist in the recovery, but has so far limited additional volumes to cargoes critical to production lines in Eastern Canada.  CN must try to help "just enough" to minimize the impact to Canada's economy or risk the government stepping in and forcing them to take some CP volume, which would have a greater negative impact on CN's locomotive and terminal operations.

In a letter Monday to members, Canadian International Freight Forwarders Association Executive Director George Kuhn described Canada's "broken and inadequate transport infrastructure" which requires substantial investment to cope with huge new container ships now entering service in the Pacific trade.

In the U.S., Union Pacific is also struggling with congestion and delays.  Last week UP announced it would begin trucking shipments for United Parcel Service on the Dallas-Memphis leg of its transcontinental service to cope with increasing system congestion.  Much of UP's problems are blamed on crew and engine shortages.  UP offered early retirement packages that were accepted at much higher than expected rates and decimated their ability to crew trains, so UP has been recruiting and training new crews at unprecedented levels. 

BNSF, meanwhile, has had slower than usual On-Time Performance throughout the winter, but their operations remain fluid in the U.S.