Canadian Pacific Railway Development

Canadian Pacific Railway Development

This article was about the Canadian Pacific Railway. For over 100 years, the railway has practiced a tonnage based shipping model. Trains were to wait in their yards until there were enough shipments to justify a train journey from one point to another. The result of this method was that very few trains traveled, and that the trains that did travel were never on a regular schedule. This resulted in much inefficiency for the company. Some of the issues were trains were sitting in yards with half full loads for days, yard workers having inconsistent shifts and sometimes sitting around in case a train might leave that day, and most importantly, customers were uncertain of delivery times for their goods. The “efficient” movement model resulted in poor customer satisfaction and a rather large set of excess equipment such as train cars, locomotives, and workers. As a result, the profit of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) was very low and the company decided it was time for a new model.

CPR hired MultiModal Applied Systems to help them formulate a solution. This solution was to have the guiding goals of more consistent train schedules, and higher customer service. The new approach was based on a small stepladder of models, which built off each other to form the final product. The first model was the block approach. A block was a group of cars with the same departure point and destination. The model worked to find how blocks of cars could be easily combined and separated in yards so that the most blocks possible, were moving at all times towards their final destination. Previously, trains had stopped at many or all yards along their long journey. Now, with the blocking model, some yards were bypassed and others were used with varying frequencies to help balance the workload of the yards and to make for more efficient paths for the blocks to travel on. This model had constraints based on the distance a block would travel compared to its shortest possible path, the busyness of yards, and the maximum length that a train could be. This model was worked on and reworked on a weekly basis, as new shipments were created, and thus each week a block would travel the most efficient path it could without over extending any other set of blocks.

Outside or on top of the block model was the train model. Trains had to have at least one locomotive and a crew. They had to be scheduled in routes that allowed them to pick up new blocks when they reached their destination, and thus keep the train loaded to at a reasonable level at all times. By working with the block model, the train model allowed for the most efficient train engine possible to do the job. Smaller engines were used for smaller trips, and larger engines were used on only the biggest trips. Also, the number of stops and starts were minimized, as this allowed for a more efficient use of fuel. By not stopping in all yards, a train could save fuel and thus lower costs. Another benefit of not stopping in many yards was that a train would have a faster travel time from point to point. This allowed for faster shipments, but it also allowed for a train to go slower and be more fuel-efficient if it did not need to rush to be on time. Thus, through the train system, fuel and crews were made more efficient.

Lastly, the model was applied to a day of the week and seasonality model. Since shipments can be ordered in as little as two weeks time, the model needed to be able to predict how different days, weeks, and months should be scheduled. This model was created with the history of the past few years, but it could be weighted so that more recent months, weeks, or days affect the prediction more. This was the last and biggest encompassing model to help set the schedules and once those were in place, allowed for the scheduling of crews, cars, locomotives, and maintenance, in a timely and predictable fashion.

The outcome of this was a model of efficiency and customer satisfaction. Millions of dollars were saved year after year, and excess supplies were paired down. The CPR was able to lower its number of cars, engines, and crews, because the trains were now traveling more efficiently and with a consistency that allowed for them to remove equipment which had before, simply had to sit and wait for usage. The number of starts a train had to make was lowered, the average speed and thus fuel used by a train was lowered, and the expected times of regular routes was lowered when compared to their time of travel before the remodel. The CPR came out of this new model with a leaner, more profitable operation, and has been using and refining the models ever since.

The CPR model is a great example of how the old way of doing business is being surpassed by new approaches. Technology, and programs that run models in particular are becoming