March 5, 2020
CN announced on Tuesday that, in the absence of significant illegal blockades on its network over the last few days, it was calling back most of the temporarily laid off employees based in Eastern Canada.
Over 1,400 trains, including passenger trains, were delayed or cancelled because of the blockades, causing shutdowns of parts of CN's network as freight is parked across the network, ready to be moved.
CN's president and chief executive officer ,JJ Ruest, said: "While we are keeping a close watch on our network for any further disruptions, we are mobilizing our employees to be ready to implement a focused and methodical recovery plan for our Eastern network. The complete network recovery process will take several weeks."
"In Western Canada, for the last two weeks, we have been well on our way to recovering. While we are aware that there is still work ahead of us, export grain, imported containerized goods, coal, potash, energy products, and other commodities are moving to markets. We are rebalancing our assets to service customer sites for loading," explained Ruest.
CP Rail is in a similar process to resume full network operations with the last blockade, in Kahnawake (Qubec), having been officially lifted on Thurrsday.
In Listuguj, in Qubec's Gasp region, the micmacs also lifted their blockade on Thursday and the Socit du chemin de fer de la Gaspsie is working to resume service.