CN Rail Relocates Calgary Yard to Rockyview

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by fusili

If I heard right, the City was doing whatever it could to prevent CrossIron Mills from developing in the M.D. of Rockyview (Rockyview County now) by not granting a water allocation to the mall. However, they eventually bought some water allocation off of some farmers (damn those agricultural allocations!) and was able to develop.

That's pretty much how it went down. CIM wasn't going to be granted a water license from the City of Calgary, and they were also turned away when they wanted to get their water from the Red Deer River. The Western Irrigation District (WID) then stepped up and made an agreement with the developers.

+1 for Doug's comments. Good assessment.

[Oliver Klozov]

A little info regarding speculation of what CN might do with the old Sarcee Yard.

The Sarcee Yard runs between Barlow Trail and 52 Street SE south of 50 Ave. The entry/exits at the west end (Barlow) go to Foothills Industrial, a connection to CP's Alyth Yard and the line that turns northeast. That is the Three Hills sub. It basically follows Hwy 21 up to Edmonton with a connection at Mirror that goes Red Deer and Rocky Mountain House.

The line that runs east from the 52 St end is the Drumheller sub which eventually ends up in Saskatoon. CN no longer runs trains Calgary-Saskatoon and has filed for abandonment of most of this line. (Calgary out to Lyalta would remain).

With that in mind, it would seem to me that almost all Calgary-bound trains from Edmonton will terminate at the new Conrich yard. The only traffic between Sarcee and Conrich will be local shipping/receiving from Foothills and any interchange with CP.

[Doug]

After living in Seattle, Vancouver, Toronto and Edmonton, I cannot stress the advantage of having a single municipal government controling virtually all of a metropolitan area. Regional governance does not work and cannot work. Look to the endless infighting most major cities suffer and how much money and time that wastes in tackling important issues. Calgary should fight tooth and nail to annex these regions before they become political forces unto themselves. I would go a step further and propose that Calgary should annex Cochrane, Airdrie, Chestermere, Okotoks all of Rockyview and all of Mountain View. Right now that could fly because the Provincial government would likely not loose many votes over the issue as voting patterns are still quite similar between Calgary and the surrounding region. In addition, the property tax rates are still relatively similar across regional municipalities.

Seattle was an extremely frustrating place to live (I actually lived in Redmond and worked in Kirkland and later in Seattle proper). The Seattle region is a wonderful and still has huge potential to be even better, but suffers massive problems with transportation, housing affordability, public utilities and public schools. None of these problems even stand a hope of being addressed because each municipality pursues a slightly different agenda and consensus is impossible. The State government is afraid to force solutions in fear of alienating certain municipalities. It is no wonder projects like what to do with Alaskan Way, replacing the Evergreen Point bridge and Link LRT take so long and cost so much.

[Oliver Klozov]

The tracks bisecting Calgary’s downtown primarily belong to Canadian Pacific Rail and are not affected by Thursday’s announcement.

“I don’t see that moving for probably 10 to 30 years,” Ceci said about the downtown tracks, noting that eventually, he’d like the CP tracks circle Calgary rather than cut right through the heart of the city.

Joe

Joe must figure that trains can go up and down steep grades. There is nowhere that CP could run a line around Calgary. The southwest is out due to the Indian reserve and the northwest is out due to hilly terrain.

I could see CP building a replacement for Alyth Yard with a new hump facility somewhere to the southeast towards Carseland. I don't see them replacing Ogden Yard this century.

[Wooster]

^^ GTA is a prime example of this. Municipalities undercutting themselves in taxes to attract employers, planning regulation at its lowest common denomenator to attract development, completely disfunctional regional transit systems and on and on. Make Calgary's CMA boundary the City Boundary (+1 to the south of the city)

[Wooster]

I think even if CP stopped using their downtown line for freight, it would probably still be in the City's best interest to keep the line. Even though it is unsightly and certainly has stiffled development on fronting lands , it appears there will be enough pressure on real estate to build it up in the next 10-20 years. If heavy rail commuter lines and a high speed rail line are in the region's future, that ROW is very important to maintain. Most major cities have rail lines running through their core that are a lot wider and more disruptive than Calgary's.

[lubicon]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

I just read through the comments on the Herald article. It seems like half the posters are totally confused and thinking that the article is talking about the CP Ogden yard and the tracks running through downtown.

Like most newspaper commenters they probably only read the headline and jumped to all their conclusions from that!

I see this move as being another strong step forward in solidifying Calgary as the prairie provinces hub for cargo and logistics. The proximity to YYC is a good thing.

Originally Posted by Oliver Klozov

A little info regarding speculation of what CN might do with the old Sarcee Yard.

The Sarcee Yard runs between Barlow Trail and 52 Street SE south of 50 Ave. The entry/exits at the west end (Barlow) go to Foothills Industrial, a connection to CP's Alyth Yard and the line that turns northeast. That is the Three Hills sub. It basically follows Hwy 21 up to Edmonton with a connection at Mirror that goes Red Deer and Rocky Mountain House.

The line that runs east from the 52 St end is the Drumheller sub which eventually ends up in Saskatoon. CN no longer runs trains Calgary-Saskatoon and has filed for abandonment of most of this line. (Calgary out to Lyalta would remain).

With that in mind, it would seem to me that almost all Calgary-bound trains from Edmonton will terminate at the new Conrich yard. The only traffic between Sarcee and Conrich will be local shipping/receiving from Foothills and any interchange with CP.

This move makes total sense for CN, and I partially agree with Bigtime in that this is good for Calgary. However keep in mind (as Oliver says) that CN's main line runs through Edmonton and everything coming or going from Calgary will be via Edmonton and CN's intermodal yard there.

This should help the traffic situation around the Sarcee yard, but the City will take a tax hit I would think.

[Aralaus]

One interesting thought for me coming out of this that hasn't been mentioned is how this might affect the Airport Tunnel. There is considerable industrial presence around YYC and I imagine some degree of freight would be going to or from the airport to the new yard. Currently this would require a detour to Deerfoot via either Stoney or TCH, where Airport Trail (via 96th Ave) would drop you right on the doorstep of the new yards. If I am Calgary I am getting CN on the line to put some pressure on Edmonton and Ottawa to get this done.

[You Need A Thneed]

Originally Posted by Aralaus

One interesting thought for me coming out of this that hasn't been mentioned is how this might affect the Airport Tunnel. There is considerable industrial presence around YYC and I imagine some degree of freight would be going to or from the airport to the new yard. Currently this would require a detour to Deerfoot via either Stoney or TCH, where Airport Trail (via 96th Ave) would drop you right on the doorstep of the new yards. If I am Calgary I am getting CN on the line to put some pressure on Edmonton and Ottawa to get this done.

just what I was thinking too. The intermodal Yards located there by Conrich would create a lot of truck traffic on Airport Trail. It's worth building the tunnel just to take that extra pressure off of other roads.

[Doug]

Originally Posted by You Need A Thneed

just what I was thinking too. The intermodal Yards located there by Conrich would create a lot of truck traffic on Airport Trail. It's worth building the tunnel just to take that extra pressure off of other roads.

Wouldn't most of the traffic load be on Stoney?

[Aralaus]

The entire purpose of Stoney was to supposedly get commercial traffic off of our main thoroughfares in the city, and this will send a lot of them right back onto them.

As far as local traffic generation is concerned, the intersection of Stoney and 68th precludes any truck traffic as the onramp onto 16th enters the roadway after the exit to turn onto south 68th, while I believe 52nd is only a truck route from 17th south. Certainly 52nd would see an increase in traffic, but must of it would successfully be put onto Stoney and future connectors into the industrial parks on the south side. I am more worried about north side connections, as TCH and McKnight seem the only available choices if a tunnel is not built.

The tunnel is needed. Bronco knows this, Stelmach knows this and Harper knows this. The problem is this is a political fight (and rightfully so). Bronco made a big fuss about cash, got it, and left nothing in the kitty for something that suddenly is "the most important infrastructure like ever to be built in Calgary... ever!". Optics are certainly a large part of it, but the province and feds really need to see that this is a crucial link, all the more so with a major rail yard being constructed on the corridor the link would serve.

[O-tacular]

Great news! Now if only CP would follow suit.

[Aegis]

Originally Posted by Bigtime

I just read through the comments on the Herald article. It seems like half the posters are totally confused and thinking that the article is talking about the CP Ogden yard and the tracks running through downtown.

Like most newspaper commenters they probably only read the headline and jumped to all their conclusions from that!

I see this move as being another strong step forward in solidifying Calgary as the prairie provinces hub for cargo and logistics. The proximity to YYC is a good thing.

I hate user submitted comments as a footer to new stories. They are the worst development in the whole trend towards "interactive content."

They are to the internet what a toxic waste dump is to the environment.

[JBinCalgary]

Some of you may not know but i work at cn here in calgary as a locomotive engineer. The new yard is going to contain two 10000' intermodal pad tracks with another two coming on later, the current yard at sarcee is restricted to running 9000' train account distance between 52st and barlow. The old yard is going to be taken over by the city of calgary as an lrt depot. Good news for me, bad news for those cake eaters out at conrich in the multi million dollar homes
The city has wanted CN out for awhile, when the yard was built years ago they werent running 12000' trains and traffic is a major issue now.

[JBinCalgary]

Originally Posted by You Need A Thneed

I imagine this will increase the traffic on the existing line (from their old yard to the new yard) How will that affect automobile traffic on 68th Street, 17th Ave, 52nd Street, 36th Street, and Peigan Trail where that line crosses those roads?

Would CN want to twin that line?

They only runs two trains in a day, and two trains out, so adding a secon line would be useless

[Bigtime]

I was hoping you could fill us in with some more info JBin, thanks!

[frinkprof]

Originally Posted by JBinCalgary

The old yard is going to be taken over by the city of calgary as an lrt depot.

I had thought this might be a possibility. This will of course be the site of the operations and maintenance centre for the southeast LRT line.

If you have any other information, I'd be interested to hear it.

[srperrycgy]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

I had thought this might be a possibility. This will of course be the site of the operations and maintenance centre for the southeast LRT line.

If you have any other information, I'd be interested to hear it.

Interesting... The location could be a good candidate for an operations centre connected by a ~1km non-revenue track from the line at Ogden Rd. Honestly, I never figured this site at all for the SELRT ops centre.

[Riise]

Originally Posted by frinkprof

I had thought this might be a possibility. This will of course be the site of the operations and maintenance centre for the southeast LRT line.

Isn't it a little far from the proposed line? It seems a little odd that the city would go so far out of their way to utilize this land, which I'm assuming would come at a cost as they would have to electrify the ROW and build a shed, when I'm sure it could be recycled by private interests. I don't find it clear why they would want to preserve the rail orientation of the land. However, I could be missing something.

[Policy Wonk]

For a little geography...



Railway Association of Canada CD-ROM, uploaded to Photobucket by me. Probably shouldn't have, but whatever.