WASHINGTON — Chicago commuter operator Metra has asked the Surface Transportation Board for more time to file comments on the proposed Canadian Pacific-Kansas City Southern merger, saying CP had originally “filed a false response” to Metra’s request for information, and only recently provided an incomplete set of documents Metra says it needs to assess the impact of the merger on its operations.
The filing with the STB, originally submitted on Feb. 18 and resubmitted with a date correction on Tuesday, follows an earlier Metra request to the STB to force CP to hand over information [see “Metra asks regulators to order CP to provide more merger-related data,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 3, 2022].
The new filing asks for an additional 30 days, until March 30, 2022, to file the commuter agency’s comments, saying it had been notified on Feb. 15 that CP had provided “hundreds if not thousands of documents,” including Rail Traffic Controller modeling data on how the merger would affect traffic on Metra lines where CP operates — which Metra says it first requested in November 2021. CP operates on two Metra-owned and operated routes, the Milwaukee District-North and the Milwaukee District-West lines.
That information, Metra says “directly contradicts” earlier CP assertions that no such modeling had been done since at least 2017. “Metra is now left scrambling to understand what CP’s previously undisclosed modeling … indicates regarding the transaction’s impacts on Metra service,” the filing says. “… Metra is extremely troubled that CP’s apparently misleading responses to Metra’s previous discovery requests will now provide Metra no time to digest and incorporate information it has requested for many months but only now received.”
The agency says that “while time is tight, Metra believes it can conduct an adequate analysis … with a 30-day extension.”
What business is this of any government? This is a private business transaction.
CP responded to the STB Wednesday 2/23/22 – excerpts from its filing re: Metra’s extension request:
“…Applicants respond to Metra’s Request for Extension of Time to File Comments …by stating that they do not oppose a modest extension (though Applicants suggest 15 days instead of 30) limited to Metra…”
and
“…Applicants offer a few words on the discovery issues of which Metra complains, which relate to RTC modeling runs. Metra sought the RTC modeling that its counsel assumed Applicants had conducted in connection with the Application. Applicants explained to Metra’s counsel that there was no such RTC modeling. When Metra expanded the temporal and territorial scope of its discovery requests, Applicants located certain documents related to past
RTC modeling exercises that had been performed for the purpose of discrete projects that had nothing to do with the CP/KCS Transaction and involve lines over which Metra does not operate….”
and this footnote #4:
“Late yesterday, Applicants received a Motion to Compel filed by Metra relating to file names for the RTC model files previously produced. The parties had not met and conferred prior to Metra’s Motion, and a phone call would have sufficed. Within hours, Applicants supplied a set of files with original file names (rather than file names modified to include Bates numbers as part of the formal
document production process), thereby resolving the issues raised in Metra’s Motion.”
FWIW, STB Chair Oberman was Metra Chairman from 2014 until 2016, in addition to being a Chicago politician for many years.
OH Shucks! We forgot to share the information that shows what we said we didn’t have, we actually did have…..
Hmmmm.
A miss by the merger project manager at CP. They should have had the modeling data as part of the post-merger operational assessment. (IMHO)
Maybe if Illinois hadn’t given in to its North Shores NIMBYs ……