CN resumes shipments through Jasper after assessing fire risk

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Canadian National Railway Co. CNR-T resumed freight shipments through Jasper, Alta., on Friday after shutting down service through its Rocky Mountain mainline corridor earlier in the week in response to the devastating wildfire that damaged the town.

CN said it is monitoring fire and weather conditions with the multiagency command centre responsible for dealing with the disaster to assess whether it can operate its trains safely through Jasper.

“After inspecting its infrastructure on Thursday afternoon, CN collaborated with the unified incident command centre to revise and implement its operational plan allowing goods to safely resume movements Friday morning through Jasper,” CN spokesperson Ashley Michnowski said in a statement.

Traffic in the corridor had been suspended twice in recent days as the fire threat increased in the region and flames roared into the mountain town. The economic impact of the interruption of shipments is not yet known.

Wildfire mostly extinguished in Jasper, but no timeline for return as flames ravage surrounding areas

A combination of rain, cooler weather and firefighting efforts have combined to extinguish most of the blazes within the Jasper townsite, James Eastham, incident information officer on the Jasper fire complex, said Friday. However, a wildfire is still burning out of control in Jasper National Park. Early this week, the park was ordered evacuated, forcing 25,000 residents, seasonal workers and tourists to flee.

CN’s tracks extend to the West Coast ports of Vancouver and Prince Rupert, and east across the country. Officials at the B.C. ports have said they expect at least some delays.

Olivia Mowatt, spokesperson for the Prince Rupert Port Authority, said on Friday that officials are in close contact with CN and terminal operators to understand the impact of the disruptions. “At this time, marine terminals continue to operate but some will likely be impacted by the interruption of rail service,” Ms. Mowatt said in an e-mail.

The Port of Vancouver also expects delays in the movement of goods, port spokesman Alex Munro said Thursday, adding that an increase in anchorage use at the port and southern British Columbia is also likely.

The outage, however brief, shows the importance of the rail corridor to the Canadian economy, and the vulnerability of infrastructure to increasingly severe weather events fuelled at least in part by climate change, said Barry Prentice, professor of supply chain management at the University of Manitoba’s I.H. Asper School of Business.

The railways have shown resilience in their ability to get trains running after serious incidents, such as the severe flooding caused by an atmospheric river in B.C.’s lower mainland in late 2021, he said.

There appears to be far less damage in this case. Still, supply chains take time to get back into equilibrium. “Every day the railway is out of commission, it takes a week to catch up. All those goods that didn’t move have to be filtered in with those that are still coming,” Prof. Prentice said. “There are extra costs, obviously, involved with that and disruptions at the other end, but these things really depend on how long they last.”

VIA Rail, the Crown-owned passenger service that operates on the CN main line through Jasper, was forced this week to stop operating through that corridor. It normally runs eight trains a week through the town. It is now operating between Toronto and Edmonton, and after Friday is halting service between Prince Rupert and Prince George, B.C., until it can resume operations in the area, it said.

Another passenger service, the Rocky Mountaineer excursion train, said on its website it had cancelled trips to and from Jasper “for the foreseeable future.”

“Our team is moving as quickly as possible to work through the impact to guest itineraries in this developing situation. We ask guests to please be patient as we address departures in sequential order,” it said.