Why would CP even bother? CP and UP have had a friendly connection at Eastport for many, many years and it continues to this day. The amount of grain and potash coming down the SI to the Portland area for export is impressive and continuing to increase. Even if CP still had the SI, there would be little advantage to interchanging with UP at Spokane instead of Eastport, or having a connection to the BNSF.

We have seen a huge shift in the traditional traffic patterns in the last few years. Intermodal keeps growing, coal is fading, oil and frac sand is booming and good harvests and other products keep ports busy. Now if someone ever gets a new coal dock on the US Pacific coast built you will see another shift in traffic. Declining oil prices (just paid $2.75 in Toppenish) could slow down the US oil boom in areas where cost of production is the highest, but when the Panama Canal opens the new locks it could cause a major readjustment in import intermodal traffic patterns.

The biggest issue now is that the railroads have rationalized their physical plant and skilled labor pool for maximum efficiency and capacity, but current demands are exceeding the railroad's maximum practicable capacity.

Few people realize that the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Saulte St. Marie Railroad (Soo Line) was actually planned by owner Canadian Pacific to have been another transcontinental. They made it as far as Whitetail, Montana (NE corner of the state) in the late 1910s and decided that potential routes across Montana were already too crowded with NP and GN, and not to mention that Milwaukee was struggling to compete for local traffic. It is claimed Soo was headed to Spokane to connect through the SI back into the CP system. This branch still exists taking off at Flaxton, ND (just south of the border crossing at Portal) and heads west to Whitetail, MT. This has been operated by DMVW for years and is in the heart of the Bakken oil field.

The CP/Soo main out of the Twin Cities used to be CTC between Shoreham/Humbolt yards to Paynesville. The line between Paynesville and Glenwood was upgraded with CTC a few years ago. At Glenwood, Soo's main splits and heads to Canada through Thief River Falls crossing at Noyes in the extreme NW corner of Minnesota. The other line heads through North Dakota through Minot, Flaxton (DMVW Whitetail line connection) crossing at Portal. I just read where Soo/CP Rail will be adding CTC from Glenwood to Portal which I never thought would happen. The line sees plenty of hazardous material (mostly anhydrous ammonia and LPG out of Canada) before the oil hit, no doubt requiring PTC made it an easier decision to just spend a little more for CTC.

No doubt CP is probably wishing they had made it further west to a friendly UP connection in Spokane or Butte. Imagine the money now being spent on new capacity abandoned in years past by the BN, MILW and SP (EP&SW line).