A possible strike later this month by conductors and engineers at Canada\u2019s two major freight railroads could cripple operations at the Port of Vancouver while scuttling the railroads\u2019 recent attempts to thin the inventory of long-dwelling rail containers at the port, the country\u2019s largest.<\/p>\n
The threat of rail strikes in Canada amid contract negotiations isn\u2019t atypical and agreements are often struck in the final hours, thanks to federal prodding. But container lines, railroad executives and forwarders have been warning since early 2024 that this negotiation cycle carried a higher risk.<\/p>\n
One former railroad executive who spoke to the Journal of Commerce put the likelihood of a rail strike at 50-50, adding that the industry won\u2019t know for sure until the final hours before a May 22 deadline.<\/p>\n
\u201cPaying by the hour versus paying by the miles would be a game changer in Canadian rail operations,\u201d the source, who did not want to be identified, said, referring to union resistance to the wage proposal put forth by the Class I railroads. \u201cThe union is not on board at this point, and this has become a strike issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
Notably, during a May 1 press conference announcing the authorization of a strike, the rail unions ducked questions on whether they would strike simultaneously at Canadian Pacific Railway and Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPKC). If an agreement can\u2019t be reached before the May 22 deadline, the unions could choose to target one of the railroads and focus its pressure via work stoppages.<\/p>\n
Such a disruption would reverse the modest port performance improvement at Vancouver, where rail container dwell times are still five days or longer, on average, across the port\u2019s four container terminals, according to the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority. Vanterm was the one exception, with rail dwell times on average under three days.<\/p>\n
Excessive rail container dwells, which contribute to congestion at Vancouver\u2019s marine terminals, have risen steadily this year, from 5.2 days in January to 6.7 days in February and 7.3 days in March, according to the port\u2019s website.<\/p>\n
The port has yet to release its April rail container dwell times, but railroads say dwell times have improved over the past month. On April 24, Canadian National Railway (CN) said during a first-quarter earnings call it had added eight more weekly trains serving Vancouver and Prince Rupert to handle what they expect will be sustained import growth at both British Columbia ports.<\/p>\n
Carriers, forwarders and shippers are already making contingency plans to prepare for a possible strike, but they say their options are limited. Maersk Line on Thursday said in a customer advisory it is diverting some cargo to the Port of Prince Rupert and is \u201cinducing Tacoma, WA, on four upcoming sailings on our TP1 service to care for US import\/export rail cargo should a strike take place.\u201d<\/p>\n
Re-routing cargo to other gateways is probably the most viable option, but the challenge for shippers will be to get space on alternative services, said David Bennett, chief commercial officer at the forwarder Farrow. \u201cThe PNW (Pacific Northwest) is overbooked,\u201d Bennett said.<\/p>\n
Details please refer to JOC news.<\/p>\n
Source:<\/p>\n
Mongelluzzo, B. (2024, May 8). Vancouver works through rail dwell woes while warily eyeing labor talks<\/i>. Journal of Commerce. https:\/\/www.joc.com\/article\/vancouver-works-through-rail-dwell-woes-while-warily-eyeing-labor-talks_20240508.html<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A possible strike later this month by conductors and engineers at Canada\u2019s two major freight railroads could cripple operations at the Port of Vancouver while scuttling the railroads\u2019 recent attempts to thin the inventory of long-dwelling rail containers at the port, the country\u2019s largest. The threat of rail strikes in Canada amid contract negotiations isn\u2019t …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[86,84],"class_list":["post-2984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-canadian-ports","tag-maritime"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2984"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2985,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2984\/revisions\/2985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ems.cohesionfreight.com.hk:8080\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}