Canadian Pacific CEO Keith Creel recalls requesting unplanned capex for potash route track repairs early in his tenure under board member Bill Ackman.
Insight
Creel: Mixing passenger and freight trains risks derailment due to curve physics
“You have to super elevate curves. So for a passenger train to go fast around a curve, which the curves are out in, in the geography you elevate the outer rail, and you drop down the inner rail, and it's sort of, you know, as inertia carries, carries you around…”
Opinion
Creel: The CP-KCS railroad merger is necessary for the free world
“So, so many things have happened since then that say, you know, not only is this a great merger, this is a necessary combination for the good of, maybe this is a bit ideological, for the good of mankind, for the good of the free world.”
Insight
Creel: Rail freight historically lost market share to trucks due to unreliability
“So that agility and flexibility, coupled with historically, railways have not always been the most reliable when it comes to a schedule, providing a What I call a truck-like reliable service. I think that has led to the demise of the freight that's hauled by r…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Creel: Autonomous trucks are inevitable despite major societal safety concerns
“Eventually it'd be inevitable. I think that there's obviously a big social hurdle. I know myself, I try to put myself, be a human all I can. Obviously when I'm out on the streets, if I were to see a, an AT-weller going by me, they make me nervous as they are. …”
Insight
Creel: The ideal rail siding design is 12,000 feet every 15 miles
“The perfect design, or at least in my 30 years of experience doing this, is having a 10 or 12,000 foot siding every 15 miles. That allows you the right spacing to be able to sequence trains, run long trains, make train meets, and still be efficient.”
Assertion Supported
Creel: Precision Scheduled Railroading cut CP's active locomotives by one-third
“At CP, when we implemented Precision Scheduled Railroad back in 2012, 2013 we were running with 1500 locomotives in service a day. Today we're moving more freight With about two-thirds of that, so a thousand to 1100.”