CN and Burlington Northern Santa Fe Reach Routing Protocol
Agreement to Expedite Interchange Traffic
MONTREAL and FORT WORTH, Texas, Jan. 19 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- CN
(NYSE:CNI)(TSE:CNR) and The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company
(BNSF) announced today a routing protocol agreement to streamline their
exchange of rail traffic at major gateways. BNSF is a subsidiary of Burlington
Northern Santa Fe Corporation (NYSE:BNI).
Under the protocol, CN and BNSF have established a structured plan to direct
rail traffic flows through the most efficient interchange locations, a change
that will improve transit times and asset utilization for the customers of CN
and BNSF. The new routing protocol will be implemented over a three- month
period.
James Foote, CN's executive vice-president, sales and marketing, said: "We are
pleased to be able to establish a routing protocol with the BNSF. This will
create a more seamless service for the customers and generate more capacity for
the railroads." John Lanigan, BNSF's executive vice president and chief marketing officer,
said: "As part of our effort to streamline the interchange process with all our
service partners, this agreement will provide more consistent, dependable
service for customers whose shipments move over both railways." The major interchange points for traffic moving between CN and BNSF are
Vancouver, B.C., Noyes, Minn., Superior, Wis., Chicago, Memphis, and New
Orleans.
The routing protocol will result in a number of changes in traffic: * Traffic from the Canadian prairies will be consolidated at the Noyes
interchange when moving to the western United States and at the
Superior interchange when destined to the central United States and
Texas.
* Traffic moving to and from the south central United States will be
interchanged at Memphis and at New Orleans, avoiding congestion in
Chicago.
Canadian National Railway Company spans Canada and mid-America, from the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans to the Gulf of Mexico, serving the ports of
Vancouver, Prince Rupert, B.C., Montreal, Halifax, New Orleans, and Mobile,
Ala., and the key cities of Toronto, Buffalo, Chicago, Detroit, Duluth,
Minn./Superior, Wis., Green Bay, Wis., Minneapolis/St. Paul, Memphis, St. Louis, and Jackson, Miss., with connections to all points in North America.
BNSF operates one of the largest railroad networks in North America, with about
32,000 route miles covering 28 states and two Canadian provinces. The railway
is among the world's top transporters of intermodal traffic, moves more grain
than any other American railroad, transports the components of many of the
products we depend on daily, and hauls enough low-sulphur coal to generate
about ten percent of the electricity produced in the United States. BNSF is an
industry leader in Web-enabling a variety of customer transactions at
http://www.bnsf.com/ . DATASOURCE: The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company; CN CONTACT: media, Mark Hallman, +1-905-669-3384, or investors, Robert Noorigian, +1-514-399-0052, both of CN; or Dick Russack, +1-817-867-6425, or Marsha Morgan, +1-817-352-6452, both of The Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Company Web site: http://www.bnsf.com/
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