Keith Creel, CEO of Canadian Pacific Railway, discusses the competitive dynamics between freight rail and trucking networks.
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…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Creel: Bill Ackman offered $200M when asked for $100M in unplanned capex
“I went into the board meeting, and I said, we have an issue. For me to optimize my service, I've got to run west out of Saskatoon, not east, but I need a hundred million dollars to spend on rail and ties and ballasts, and that was not planned for at all, and B…”
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.”
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.”