Teamsters Canada Rail Conference

The Canadian Pacific Railway is seeking funding from the federal government to build a new tunnel under the Detroit River that can accommodate taller trains, a senior company official said Wednesday.

The $400-million border-crossing tunnel would run parallel to the current one, Christopher Jones, CP Rail's manager of infrastructure, told the Hub '09 International Multimodal Conference in Windsor.

"We need government support through the (Ontario-Quebec Continental) Gateway initiative to make it happen," he said.

The current tunnel can't accommodate the tallest double-stacked rail cars coming from the Port of Montreal. It is also too low for the largest containers used by auto manufacturers like Honda.

The larger railway cars coming from Honda's Alliston plant have to be routed through Buffalo and containers from Montreal can't be stacked, making transport less efficient, Jones said.

"We're optimistic this project will get the public support it will need," he said.

But federal Transportation Minister John Baird, who was also at Wednesday's conference in Windsor, said it is not on his priority list.

CP is in discussions with the government over how much it might contribute to build the proposed new tunnel, Jones said. CP was told the earliest funds will be granted through the gateway initiative is 2010, he said.

If CP gets the federal support it is seeking it will still have to conduct an environmental assessment before construction could begin, Jones said.

Last month, CP reduced its ownership of the current tunnel to 16.5 per cent. The remainder is owned by the investment arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System pension fund. CP maintains the exclusive right to operate and maintain the tunnel.

That ownership structure would remain in place if the new tunnel is built, Jones said.

Baird did announce Wednesday that the federal government and CP have spent $8 million to secure a 7.5-kilometre stretch of track that leads from a rail car scanning machine off Walker Road to the entrance of the current tunnel. The added protection is to comply with U.S. Homeland Security rules and includes state-of-the-art surveillance technology, lighting and fencing. The money was also used to move tracks and signalling equipment.