Class I Briefs: CN, NS
Written by Carolina Worrell, Senior Editor
The 16th CN Canadiens Alumni Challenge raised a record $550,000. (CN via Twitter)
Canadian National’s (CN) 16th Canadiens Alumni Challenge raises a record $550,000. Also, Norfolk Southern Corporation (NS) returns to conventional hump operations at Moorman Yard in Bellevue, Ohio.
CN announced on Sept. 7 that the 16th edition of the CN Canadiens Alumni Challenge raised a record $550,000. Funds from the event, which was held on Aug. 28 at the Bell Sports Complex in Brossard’s Quartier Dix30, will benefit various charitable organizations supported by the CN Employees’ and Pensioners’ Community Fund, namely those dedicated to helping children in need.
According to the railroad, the CN Employees’ and Pensioners’ Community Fund, which has been in existence for more than 50 years, has raised $5.3 million for charity through this event since 2002.
A team of CN employees faced off against a team of former Montreal Canadiens players coached by Yvan Cournoyer and made up of Guy Carbonneau, Richard Sévigny, Francis Bouillon, Gaston Gingras, Stéphane Richer, Mathieu Dandenault, Gilbert Delorme, Marc-André Bergeron, Louis Leblanc and Normand Dupont.
“We are very proud to make a significant contribution that will help make a difference for many charity organizations,” said CN Acting Chief Legal Officer and Chairman of the Board of the CN Community Fund Olivier Chouc. “I want to congratulate our employees and retirees who participated and donated to the community through our CN Community Fund. I would also like to particularly thank our numerous sponsors who have partnered with us to make this event the huge success that it has been.”
“We are thankful for this year’s record-breaking contributions,” added President and CEO of CN Employees’ and Pensioners’ Community Fund Lynn Blais. “This success is not the work of any one person but the work of us all.”
With a goal of increasing the flow of railcars across its network, NS announced on Sept. 7 via a LinkedIn post (originally reported by the Wall Street Journal) that it has returned to conventional hump operations at its Moorman Yard in Bellevue, Ohio, allowing the railroad to “meet market changes, help improve customer service, increase productivity, and support growth at a strategic nexus of its network.”
According to NS, a hump yard processes railcars more efficiently with the automation of switches that route the cars into classification tracks based on their destination. Bellevue, the railroad says, can handle more cars, flexing from 1,200 a day to 1,900, while easing congestion at other rail yards.
“We’ve also been able to free-up crews elsewhere on our network to operate trains rather than switch cars,” said NS, adding that the time that cars dwell in the Moorman Yard has been reduced by nearly 8% since the hump was reactivated just a couple of weeks ago.
According to NS, Moorman Yard is the largest rail yard on the railroad’s system after the 2015 completion of $160 million in improvements that doubled its size. It is one of NS’ primary classification yards, where freight cars are collected and sorted for their final destinations.
Moorman Yard is located midway between Chicago and New York. Five NS main lines converge there, making it a “perfect location” for distributing some 3,200 carloads of freight moving daily, NS said. On a broader scale, Moorman Yard’s centralized position on NS’ Northern Region “promotes fluid movement of long-distance freight across the entire rail network,” the railroad added.
