ibetph With Freight Off the Rails, Rare Open Tracks for Passenger Trains

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If anyone benefited from the short lockout at the Canadian National and Canadian Pacific Kansas City railways this week, it might have been passengers on most Via Rail Canada trains.

[Read: Canadian Government Orders Arbitration and End to Rail Freight Shutdown]

[Read: What a Prolonged Rail Shutdown in Canada Would Mean for Trade]

ImageUnlike Amtrak, Via Rail’s trains don’t have priority over freight.Credit...Ian Austen/The New York Times

The lockout on Thursday was not quite 17 hours old when Steve MacKinnon, the federal labor minister, said he had told the Canada Industrial Relations Board to formally order the railways to restart service and to impose a contract through binding arbitration. He predicted that trains on the two freight railways would be running again within days.

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Exactly how many days was still fuzzy on Friday afternoon. The union representing the 10,000 workers, the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference, has said it opposes arbitration. It also filed a formal notice with Canadian National that it intended to go on strike against that railway on Monday and that it was keeping lockout pickets in place.

With the exception of one route in Northern Ontario, however, it’s been business as usual for Via. Its trains largely travel on Canadian National’s track as well as the comparatively small sections of track it owns near Ottawa and Windsor, Ontario.

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