CANADIAN PACIFIC Railway is to invest C$1bn on capital projects during 1998, under a spending plan announced on December 17. This comfortably exceeds CPR’s previous record spend of C$700m in 1997, and will bring the total investment since 1995 to almost C$3bn.
Almost half of the money, C$450m, will pay for 160 AC-motored diesel locos: 100 General Electric units upgradeable from 4400 to 6000hp and 60 from General Motors rated at 4300hp. All are scheduled for delivery in 1998-99, bringing to 344 the number of AC-motored diesels ordered by CPR since 1995. Another C$265m will go on track renewal, including 547 km of new rail and nearly 1 million sleepers. There will also be C$110m for information technology, C$100m for intermodal terminals, and C$23m for loco and rolling stock workshops.
- CPR is planning to expand its Iron Highway intermodal freight service between Montréal and Toronto. During a year of trials, the two prototype trainsets achieved an average on-time performance of 95% on 24 weekly journeys, despite the region’s harsh winter weather. CPR and its eastern subsidiary St Lawrence & Hudson are to invest C$20m in new equipment and terminals during 1998, doubling the train lengths to a maximum of 730m. A new terminal is to be built in the Toronto area with capacity for 250 road trailers, and expansion of the service westwards from Toronto to Detroit, and eventually Chicago, is under consideration. o
