Terra Transport
| Terra Transport | |
|---|---|
| logo | |
| Reporting marks | CN, TT |
| Locale | Newfoundland, Canada |
| Dates of operation | 1977 – 1988 |
| Track gauge | 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) |
| Headquarters | St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador |
Terra Transport (TT) was the name for the "Newfoundland Transportation Division", a wholly owned subsidiary of Canadian National Railway (CN), created in 1977 as a means to organize the company's operations on the island of Newfoundland.
Background
Canadian National Railways (CNR, CN post 1960) acquired the Newfoundland Railway in 1949 from the Government of Newfoundland under that dominion's Terms of Union upon entry into Confederation. The majority of the Newfoundland Railway's operations were not economically self-sustaining, requiring significant subsidization, however it was only after the construction of the Trans-Canada Highway across the island in the early 1960s that the railway began to see serious declines in traffic.
At the same time, CNR also took over the Newfoundland Railway's ferry service between North Sydney, Nova Scotia and Port aux Basques, Newfoundland and promptly began to make improvements by bringing in vessels dedicated to carrying automobiles and trucks throughout the 1950s-1970s.
By the early 1970s, CN was facing increased scrutiny from federal politicians who complained about the railway's continuous losses, mostly brought about by the government forcing the company to undertake various endeavours in the national interest, often at the expense of business and economic logic. As a result, CN sought to restructure itself and placed many of those operations into separate subsidiaries to clarify the accounting behind their existence. The criteria for identifying these were:
- the operation loses money and requires subsidization
- the operation is not part of CN's core freight railway business
As a result, in 1977, all east coast ferries operated by CN were placed into a new Crown corporation, CN Marine; all passenger rail services were placed into another new Crown corporation VIA Rail; all telecommunications networks were placed into CN Communications; all commercial property were placed into another subsidiary; Air Canada was made yet another new Crown corporation; and finally, all of CN's freight railway operations on Newfoundland were placed into a new Crown corporation named Terra Transport.
CN in Newfoundland
CN's operations in Newfoundland revolved around the former Newfoundland Railway, which was the longest narrow gauge railway in North America, stretching for 1000 kilometres across the island from the ferry terminal in Port aux Basques to the provincial capital at St. John's. Many of the island's largest communities developed, largely because of their location along the mainline, and as a result, the Trans-Canada Highway parallelled its route in many places.
The money losing operations in Newfoundland were largely because service times were slow due to the narrow gauge equipment. CN invested heavily in improving the track during the 1950s-1960s but the narrow gauge operation still couldn't compete with the flexibility of trucks. Significant time was lost at Port aux Basques where standard gauge railway cars from mainland North America were lifted off their wheels and onto narrow gauge wheels for use in Newfoundland. Time would also be lost where this couldn't be done and cars would be completely unloaded and then the contents reloaded onto narrow gauge cars. Another money-losing factor in the operation was that CN had to operate dedicated railway car ferries.
The most significant change made under the Terra Transport subsidiary, were the immediate changes to the carriage of less-than-carload (LCL) freight. A large fleet of distinctive green intermodal shipping containers were ordered and began to be used in place of boxcars. Containers could be stacked on mainland trains, then fitted onto the decks inside the ferries and then placed on flatcars of trains in Newfoundland - or for time sensitive goods - they could be transported entirely by truck. During the last years of the railway on Newfoundland in the early 1980s, it was common to see trains composed almost entirely of the distinctive TT containers. The handling time for freight dropped considerably as containers could be easily removed from the trains in each community and the loading/unloading at Port aux Basques was significantly improved over standard freight cars. Another significant change was made by 1984 when all of CN's branch lines were closed and abandoned in the province, leaving only the main line operational.
However despite these "improvements", Terra Transport was unable to turn a profit for CN and the federal government. The specialized ferries were still needed for carrying non-LCL railway cars and by the mid-1980s were requiring replacement. A change in the federal government in Ottawa saw a Conservative administration take over which wanted to eliminate subsidies for money-losing operations. In 1986 the last of the railcar ferries was sold off as the government changed CN Marine into a non-railway controlled entity named Marine Atlantic. Terra Transport operations were now captive on the island and would only handle import/export LCL and inter-island non-LCL freight.
Abandonment
In 1987, the federal government deregulated the railway industry in Canada and CN promptly applied to abandon its Newfoundland operations under Terra Transport. The political firestorm that followed saw the federal and provincial governments negotiate a one-time payout of $800 million (CAD) from Ottawa to St. John's to fund highway improvements. These two agreements were called:
- the "Trans-Canada Highway Program"
- the "Regional Trunk Road Agreement"
- For major improvements to the Trans-Canada Highway (TCH) and to Regional Trunk Roads (RTR), following the termination of federal support to, and closing down of, the Newfoundland Railway.
The agreements were signed in December, 1987, however continuing public outcry and legal challenges kept the railway operational for several more months. Finally on June 20, 1988 it became official that the railway would cease operations as of September 1, 1988. Following the official abandonment, the railway operated salvage trains for dismantling track in remote locations, however by November, 1988 the last trains were finished and the track was completely removed for scrapping by 1990.
