Oopsie! There goes another CPRail train off the rails in a ball of fire...

Seems we've seen a lot of CPRail disasters in the news recently.

A few years ago they were in the news a lot too, but not because of their horrendous safety record. No, the story then was all about how two American business geniuses turned CPRail around. Destroying the old culture at the company, their stated aim, payed off big time. Bill and Hunter waddled away with a cool two billion for their efforts.

They were able to add all that value to the company by shedding five thousand workers and ten thousand rail cars. Make the trains longer. You don't need nearly as many locomotives. Let the trains run faster too.


Do you think there could be a connection between that story and today's?

CP Rail charms Calgary with yet another "oopsie"

That's railroad jargon for when a train laden with highly flammable petroleum products derails in an inner city neighbourhood.

CP Rail seems to have had quite a spate of those since Wild Bill Ackman and his $50 million sidekick Hitman Harrison deigned to free up "shareholder value" by firing thousands of CP Rail employees.

Luckily, this time round there was no leakage, no explosions, no deaths, and no major headlines. But if you have a close read from about paragraph eleven on you can see that the next Lac Megantic is just a matter of time.

The good luck CP Rail enjoyed this week is what's known as "sound management practices."

When a downtown Calgary neighbourhood eventually blows up it'll be known as bad luck.

Those thousands of unemployed CP Rail employees put out to pasture by Hunter and Bill will know better.

The unAmerican way to run a railroad

We know the American way.

Fast Eddie Burkhardt nickle-and-dimed his workers half to death his entire career. Even after the horror of Lac Megantic, Burkhardt was arguing that single operator trains are safer because there are "fewer distractions."

E. Hunter Harrison got a $50 million signing bonus courtesy of Bill Ackman to work his slash-and-burn magic at Canadian Pacific. Does anyone dare question if there is a connection between Harrison's goal of slashing a quarter of the workforce and the fact the rate of accidents at CPR has gone up by 26%?  

    

Believe it or not, there's another way to treat employees. Here's an excerpt from the website of German rail operator DeutscheBahn:

What we do for our employees

For a secure future – and a lifetime career

We accept responsibility for our employees. It begins with first-class training and continuous education, followed by fair wages based on collective bargaining agreements, down to comprehensive social benefits.

What the hell is wrong with those people?

Burkhardt and Harrison would die laughing!

Security?

A lifetime career?

Training?

Comprehensive benefits?

Get outta here!

CP Rail fires engineers, will focus on financial engineering instead

Oopsie!... there goes another CP freight train careening off a bridge in Northern Ontario!

But never mind. Harrison and co. have bigger fish to fry!

Much bigger!

Seems that over the past 100 years as they've sold off 800,000 acres of their original land grants in BC they didn't mean to sell the resource rights along with them.

Those resource rights are worth billions today.

They're going to need them to pay Harrison his next performance bonus.

Dozens of lawyers are going to be making careers out of this for years to come.