CP strengthens sales and marketing efforts

Canadian Pacific on June 7 said the railroad is now “at an inflection point” in terms of growing business and improving customer service, possessing “a willingness to identify and implement total transportation solutions.” The Sales and Marketing group “is generating new opportunities and driving growth.”

“We have a proven operating model, the shortest routes in key markets, and are now making great strides in customer service,” said CP President and CEO Keith Creel, who assumed leadership of CP from Hunter Harrison in January. “Over the past four years, a lot of work has been done to improve our cost structure and build a strong foundation for success. We are now well positioned to leverage CP’s safe, highly efficient and low-cost transportation model.”

“We are now at an inflection point and are well positioned to grow the franchise, sell a competitive service and offer our customers a best-in-class, total transportation solution,” said CP Chief Marketing Officer John Brooks. “CP delivers safely and efficiently from A to Z, but now by collaborating closely with our customers and actively listening, we better understand their needs and are taking action to strengthen our total product in the marketplace.”

CP said it is “building on the success of our grain franchise and the innovative Dedicated Train Program,” as Sales and Marketing “is focused on strategic improvements across all lines of business, with one objective: leveraging the total transportation product.”

CP pointed to two recent initiatives that “highlight our innovative approach to enhancing the customer experience through offering a more reliable total product and extending market reach”:

• CP is ordering 41 new gensets—purpose-built 40-foot containers that house two large generators capable of powering up to 17 refrigerated ocean-going containers—to expand its PPS (protective and perishable service) product to serve a growing segment of the transportation market. With this investment, CP plans to launch additional transcontinental genset train starts from the ports of Vancouver and Montreal, surpassing those offered by other Class I’s, “providing CP customers the most frequent, reliable, and environmentally friendly PPS service on the market today, all supported by an unparalleled telematics package providing the assurance of real time cold-chain security.” The gensets are to be delivered throughout the remainder of 2017 and the first quarter of 2018.

• A new “live” lift at Portal, N. Dak.,was opened in May. Portal is the border crossing for CP’s intermodal traffic moving between Western Canada and the U.S. Midwest. As described by Creel at Railway Age’s Rail Insights conference in Chicago, the new service allows CP to lift single containers off trains for inspection by Canadian and U.S. authorities, as opposed to having entire intermodal cars set-off, a practice that delays three or more containers. “This investment will virtually eliminate non-targeted containers from being delayed at the border crossing,” Creel said.

CP will continue to leverage Vancouver, Canada’s largest port of entry, which is connected to CP’s shortest routes to the U.S. Midwest. “Simply put, we have fixed the engine and are now focused on sustainable growth and best serving our customers,” Creel said.