Hudson’s Bay Company and CPR partnering on Expressway rail service

Hudson’s Bay Company and Canadian Pacific Railway are partnering to ship truck trailers by rail, to reduce traffic congestion and greenhouse gas emissions on Highway 401.

Hudson’s Bay Company will ship 16,000 trailers a year on CPR’s Expressway service between Toronto and Montreal, removing approximately 60 trucks a day from the highway. CPR built an Expressway terminal near the Hudson’s Bay Company’s eastern distribution centre in Scarborough, Ontario.

Four trains a day serve the terminal, which opened in February. Expressway is a fast roll-on/roll-off trailer-on-train service which allows shippers to bypass congested roads. Standard truck trailers are loaded onto specially built rail cars on scheduled train services operating between Detroit, Toronto and Montreal.

With an average transit time of seven hours between Montreal and Toronto on Expressway, Hudson’s Bay Company says it has maintained service levels and continued its just-in-time deliveries while reducing its transportation costs.