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Yesterday, CN announced it reached an agreement with Agri-Food Central Ltd. to improve service performance and consistency for specialty grains moving from western Canada to Mexico via rail, and to other markets through Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf Coast ports served by the Class I.

CN and Agri-Food Central agreed to exchange information to jointly measure rail service and supply-chain performance, cooperate on joint supply-chain planning efforts and establish a process to address any rail service issues.

Agri-Food Central loads bags of lentils, canary seed, flax and peas into 53-foot containers at CN's intermodal terminal in Winnipeg, Manitoba. The railroad then hauls the containers to Montreal, Vancouver and New Orleans for export, as well as to Mexico in conjunction with Kansas City Southern.

“CN is signing a series of supply chain collaboration agreements that are key to encouraging all stakeholders to achieve improved service levels, as well as greater productivity and efficiency,” said Doug MacDonald, CN’s vice president of corporate marketing, in a prepared statement. “We believe this commercial approach is the right way to move distribution services to the next level.”

CN also announced yesterday that conductors and brakemen represented by the United Transportation Union (UTU) have ratified a pact that will consolidate work activities in the upper Midwest under a single collective bargaining agreement. Effective Jan. 1, 2012, the contract covers more than 430 employees at CN’s Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway Co., Duluth, Winnipeg and Pacific Railway Co. and Wisconsin Central Ltd. properties.

The contract was negotiated in anticipation of an intra-corporate family merger of the three subsidiaries into a Wisconsin Central Ltd. unit, CN officials said in a prepared statement. The pact will generate greater labor flexibility and operational efficiencies in a key freight corridor between the Canadian and United States border at International Falls, Minn., and Chicago, they said.

“This single collective agreement for all conductors and brakemen in the upper Midwest is an important step to allow CN to run its trains seamlessly across the [region] and to make greater use of our employee base,” said Jim Vena, senior vice president-Southern Region.

The contract provides general wage increases and additional personal leave days, and preserves no-furlough clauses on each property, according to the UTU. The pact also calls for four stand-alone general committees to be placed under the jurisdiction of one general committee.

“The merger reduces the administration costs associated with four general committees,” said UTU International Vice President John Babler in a news item posted on the union’s web site.