Last summer CN rolled out a new rate incentive structure building on the Winter Ready program. CN’s Loop / Tangent Track Incentive encourages shippers to invest in hook-and-haul infrastructure, saving time and creating capacity. Qualifying facilities are able to receive and release 100+ cars on a single track – not multiple ladder tracks that take longer to serve going in and out – and the facility must be equipped with a power switch that can be operated remotely by CN, making for safer, more efficient rail operations. The faster a train can clear the CN mainline, the more capacity freed up to move all the other traffic running on the line - including more grain. CN has 15 facilities that currently qualify for this efficiency train incentive, with over 20 expected to be qualified by next summer.
The ultimate in efficiency is the high throughput elevator equipped with either single a long track or a loop. Of the 30 loop track country elevators in western Canada, CN accesses two out of three, and most of those are served exclusively by CN. If overall cycle time can be reduced by even one or two days per trip, that translates into a savings of weeks over the course of the crop year, meaning more trips you can make with that set of hoppers — and that means more grain moving on CN’s network.