Canadian Pacific restores flood-impacted mainline near Calgary

Canadian Pacific yesterday announced its mainline west of Calgary, Alberta, that runs through the province's Banff-Canmore region reopened after crews restored flood-impacted track segments.

A portion of track in Calgary was expected to reopen yesterday evening, fully restoring the mainline, and a segment of a line to Lethbridge, Alberta, should be fully restored by Thursday, CP officials said in a press release.

Heavy rainfall that occurred late last week as well as an accelerated snowcap melt in the Canadian Rockies caused severe flooding, and many southern Alberta communities remain evacuated and under states of emergency, including Calgary, they said.

Over a four-day period, crews responded to more than 40 track locations that were impacted by high water in both Alberta and the British Columbia interior. As locations were identified, workers responded with equipment and resources to restore each track outage.

"Considering the devastating impacts to thousands of people and property that this extreme weather left in its path, I commend the resiliency and dedicated efforts of all our CP railroaders, who safely worked to get our network back in service so quickly," said CP Chief Executive Officer E. Hunter Harrison. "The force and extent of this flooding was extensive and evolved from hour to hour."