CN contract proposal would have required Amtrak to pay $1.4 million for delaying freight trains in 2024

WASHINGTON — Amtrak would have owed Canadian National $1.4 million for delays its passenger trains caused to CN freights last year under the CN’s proposal for a new operating agreement, according to a document filed with the Surface Transportation Board on Tuesday (July 22, 2025).

The CN filing and one from Amtrak are in response to an STB decision in April that asked one or both of the parties to provide more information on 14 different aspects of their long-running dispute over the new agreement. [see “STB asks CN, Amtrak …,” Trains News Wire, April 10, 2025]. The matter has been before the STB since 2013, leaving Amtrak’s operations on CN governed by an agreement dating to 2011.

While such agreements between Amtrak and freight railroads have long addressed delays freight trains cause to passengers, CN is seeking to introduce a penalty for Amtrak-related disruptions to its freight service. The explanation of CN’s proposed methodology is technical and densely explained, and large portions of the public version of the document have been redacted. But CN argues it “is now confident that it can, without undue burden, quantify the incremental costs of freight delays due to Amtrak specifically and verifiably.” Costs would be assessed on a per-freight-delay-hour basis.

The railroad did say it is open to working with Amtrak to establish a simplified methodology for determining such delay costs. It also argues that its method is “very conservative” and that “actual incremental costs of freight delay due to Amtrak are thus considerably higher.”

Amtrak’s filing also contains significant redactions in its calculations of penalties CN would incur for delaying passenger trains. The passenger operator contends CN is not entitled to recover delay costs because it is required by statute to provide Amtrak with operating preference and is therefore “not entitled to compensation for complying with this statutory obligation.” Amtrak also argues that CN benefits from being relieved of its common carrier obligation to provide passenger service.

In addition, Amtrak argues the costs do not fit the statutory definition of “incremental costs” because they are not as a result of Amtrak using CN’s facilities or CN providing services to Amtrak. “Rather,” according to the filing, “these are costs associated with CN’s use of its own locomotives to transport its own freight.” (Emphasis in the original.)

Both parties also addressed a question raised by Board member Karen Hedlund regarding whether host railroads should provide compensation for Amtrak and its passengers when train cancellations are the responsibility of the line owner. Not surprisingly, Amtrak sees such compensation as a “reasonable term” that should be required by the board, while CN argues against the concept, saying it would require legislation that would “fundamentally change Amtrak’s relationships with both its passengers and its hosts.”

CN further says host-railroad compensation would be “anomalous and unreasonable” because they “have no control over Amtrak ticketing prices or policies, and lack even a direct contractual relationship with Amtrak passengers.” Amtrak, on the other hand, argues that without such a requirement, “CN has no accountability for delays to Amtrak’s passengers — or the resulting costs for reaccommodating them — necessitated by its own acts, omissions, and/or operational decisions.”

CN and Amtrak now have until Sept. 22 to respond to each others’ filings.