Canadian National Railway: The Great Railroad Construction Robbery (of Metrolinx)

[typezed]

http://sirf-online.org/2016/12/12/canadian-national-railway-the-great-ralroad-construction-robbery/


Acting on a tip, the Southern Investigative Reporting Foundation began investigating Canadian National in the fall of 2014. Here’s what our reporting uncovered:

• For over 15 years Canadian National earned hundreds of millions of dollars in profit by marking up rail construction costs up more than 900 percent to a public-sector client.
• Canadian National regularly engaged in questionable business practices like charging internal capital maintenance and expansion projects to the same taxpayer-funded client and billing millions of dollars for work that was never done.
• A just-released auditor general investigation suggested a series of reforms that will reduce these profits.
• For years, train yard personnel, under intense pressure from management, have intentionally misreported on-time performance, helping it boost revenues by hundreds of millions of dollars.

 

[jje1000]

Does this tie into what the Auditor General found?

The audit also found Metrolinx “does not know that it is getting what it pays for” in rail contracts with CN and CP, with CN’s construction charges up to 130 per cent higher than a competitor’s and no questions asked.

In one instance, Metrolinx paid for new parts in rail line construction and got used ones instead.

“It does not check to ensure that parts are new,” said Lysyk.

https://www.thestar.com/news/queens...ds-to-up-their-game-auditor-general-says.html

 

[Allandale25]

Would this situation, where CN allegedly overcharges, not be more avoidable in the future because RER and electrification will happen on tracks owned by Metrolinx? I wonder if this will put more pressure on CN and give Metrolinx more leverage with the 'new' lines that will be built (IE the Brampton-Milton bypass, Niagara Region GO and the Bowmanville extension with CP Rail).

 

[DSC]

Would this situation, where CN allegedly overcharges, not be more avoidable in the future because RER and electrification will happen on tracks owned by Metrolinx? I wonder if this will put more pressure on CN and give Metrolinx more leverage with the 'new' lines that will be built (IE the Brampton-Milton bypass, Niagara Region GO and the Bowmanville extension with CP Rail).

If the report is right the problem is that Metrolinx does not supervise contracts and contractors properly. Unless all these revelations result in some heads rolling I doubt it will make any diffrence whether they are paying for work on track they own or track the use.

 

[kEiThZ]

How could Metrolinx be this incompetent at contracting?

If this is true, we're screwed. Transit will never improve in the region. All the contractors will see Metrolinx as an atm.

 

[smallspy]

How could Metrolinx be this incompetent at contracting?

If this is true, we're screwed. Transit will never improve in the region. All the contractors will see Metrolinx as an atm.

To the contrary - they already did see Metrolinx as an ATM. Now that this has been made public, they will realize that their practices are much more likely to be put under a microscope and they will be much more careful.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[Palma]

To the contrary - they already did see Metrolinx as an ATM. Now that this has been made public, they will realize that their practices are much more likely to be put under a microscope and they will be much more careful.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

I doubt this. I am sure there are employees at metrolinx that knew this. Its like the contractors that have contract with province to snowplow highways. Lets see first Liberals bought the winning bidder equipment to keep and to use, then though contractor was sued they never paid fines, were rewarded with bonuses for doing work they were suppose to do (or was this the contractors that paved the highway) and then 2 years later roads had to be redone and now they are getting paid again, or the lobbying down on behalf of contractors that paved the road for the gov't to hold off on testing - roads should last 15 years but the work done required repaving 2 years later. I am so confused. How does this happen? Tell me money is not changing hands

 

[dowlingm]

It does seem odd, with Metrolinx owning more trackage now as opposed to buying space on CN/CP ROWs, that this has come as such a surprise. Surely their contracts on their own trackage and with CP showed significant different in cost/mile. And nobody noticed/chose to flag up worn clips on newly laid track during acceptance and subsequent track inspections? And the answer is now "well, that's a sunk cost and we'll just have to be warier in the future?" (Although those lobbying for Missing Link would not appreciate a hard line with CN/CP right now)

 

[crs1026]

(Although those lobbying for Missing Link would not appreciate a hard line with CN/CP right now)

Bingo.

There are more than a few ways that CN and CP could legally make life difficult for GO if they tried. A healthy dose of "pick your battles" has always applied to this relationship.

A-G reports are useful for tipping public sentiment towards something that might be harder to achieve without the public's involvement. There is an up side to playing politics some times.

- Paul