advertisement

---

To further solidify a 36-year-old — and counting — relationship, Canadian Pacific Railway and Consolidated Fastfrate Dec. 5 signed a 10-year, $400 million contract, under which Consolidated Fastfrate will provide seamless less-than-truckload (LTL) service for CPR's intermodal group and the Class I will be the Toronto-based freight fowarder's exclusive rail intermodal provider.
"Under this contract, we'll give North American shippers a level of intermodal transportation with trains and trucks so closely linked that it'll be hard to tell where one leaves off and the other begins," said CPR President and Chief Executive Officer Robert Ritchie in a prepared statement. "Since 1965, we've satisfied Consolidated Fastfrate's service and price needs to such an extent that it's partnering with us exclusively for the next decade."
Officials of the two companies believe the contract will lead to a 25 percent increase in the value of CPR's LTL transportation business.
CPR and Consolidated Fastfrate plan to offer more-advanced information systems that enable shippers to track shipments traveling on either trains or trucks. Shippers also would be able to move freight on both modes with one waybill.
Consolidated Fastfrate — Canada's largest LTL carrier — operates CPR's Thunder Bay intermodal terminal and over the past several years has spent $40 million on new facilities located inside or adjacent to the railroad's terminals across Canada.
"We can't think of a better definition of partnership," said Ritchie.