Canadian Pacific Railway moving HQ to Ogden

[hampstor]

CALGARY — Canadian Pacific outlined a "new vision for the future" that includes major job cuts and relocating its current corporate downtown Calgary office.
On Tuesday, the company announced it will be reducing its workforce by 4,500 employees/contractors by 2016.

It also announced it will relocate its headquarters by 2014 to new office space at the CP-owned Ogden Yard.

In New York, president and chief executive Hunter Harrison outlined CP’s “go-forward” plan for change that the company says will greatly improve service, increase the railway’s efficiency, lower cost and grow the business.

“Momentum is building at Canadian Pacific and the organization is driving to a culture of intense focus on operations. Service will be what drives this organization, by providing a premium, reliable product offering through a lower cost operation,” said Harrison in a news release. “We have initiated a rapid change agenda and have made tremendous progress in my first 160 days, and we are only getting started.”

Harrison said the workforce reduction will take place through job reductions, natural attrition and fewer contractors.

“We have already made progress on this front and expect 1,700 positions to be eliminated by year end,” he said in the release.

Other initiatives include new longer sidings program which will improve asset utilization and increase train length and velocity. The plan will allow CP to move the same or increased volumes with fewer trains, and is expected to save over 14,500, or four per cent, crew starts, it said.

It will also “explore options to maximize full value of existing and anticipated surplus real estate holdings.”

It will also review options for the Delaware & Hudson (D&H) in the U.S. Northeast, while maintaining options for continued growth in the energy business.

“I am excited about what we’ve achieved to date, but we have only just started this journey to being a more competitive railway,” said Harrison. “We will continue to drive our service offering while focusing on taking unproductive costs out of the business. We see a strong earnings profile and solid free cash flow picture emerging. Canadian Pacific is a great franchise with strong growth upside and we are more confident than ever that we will drive shareholder value long into the future.”



Read more: http://www.calgaryherald.com/busines...#ixzz2E8S20iKk

As I said in the Imperial Oil thread a few months ago... that area is going to be really busy.

I know a few people on here work for CP - hopefully none of you are affected by the reduction in headcount. A lot of people have recently left so I hope the 'reduction in headcount' is simply just not backfilling those positions.

Edit: Also heard ~50 positions in IT are going to get the axe. Since IT is 50% contractors, I'm not surprised.

[lint]

Lots of shake ups and uncertainty, don't know what's going on with my project yet. Might be starting the new year with a vacation. but at least I wouldn't have to commute to Ogden

[rx7boi]

Good ol' Hunter.

Best way to reduce cost and increase shareholder value is to cut positions and make the people who get to keep their jobs work harder.

He did it at CN with success, he'll continue the trend and do the same at CP. By next year's time, all the major shareholders will have new yachts, wooooohooooo.

[lint]

let's be honest, there's a ton of dead weight at CP. When your operating ratio is the worst of the big railroads, there's more talk of being busy than being busy.

but I'm a contractor, so I'll go be someone else's capital expense

[sr20s14zenki]

breaking my balls.......

[bourge73]

Well off I go to Ogden in March....Yippie.....(that is of course if I still have a job....)

[digi355]

Ogden Pizza just might make it worth working there.

[voodoo]

well im still here. they let a bunch of IT people go today. 2 of my coworkers were let go...

there are starting to offer all the contractors full time positions or telling them to hit the road.

[Maybelater]

Take them all with you!

[BigBearWest]

So far my department hasn't been hit. But shall see in the coming weeks.

[civicHB]

any of you work in Car management?

[Khyron]

I thought CP was losing the Ogden yard in the next few years, hence no bridge over the tracks near Glenmore/Ogden road? Goddamit I hate them up there.

[Go4Long]

Originally posted by Khyron
I thought CP was losing the Ogden yard in the next few years, hence no bridge over the tracks near Glenmore/Ogden road? Goddamit I hate them up there.

errr, no?

You're probably thinking of CN who have talked of building a large new facility at the north end of town and leaving the yard by the road king. I know some people would be happy to see that as the yard (as with most yards) weren't built with 12'000 ft trains in mind, which is why people are always complaining about them switching across barlow during rush hour.

Lots of changes already in the NMC, total restructure of the GM and Superintendent level, we're expecting a bit of a territory realignment come spring, with team changes probably coming over the course of the next month. Just had a conference call yesterday with a lot of the people from my territory and our new Superintendent to deal with some of the rumors and fear mongering that have been going on and try to put some of them to rest. We've all still got questions, but at least we know roughly what the plan is now.

As for the move to Ogden, it was probably the worst kept secret in the NMC. Although there were still some that were surprised by the announcement. I'm not to worried though, free parking, shorter commute, and hopefully better air quality than the current NMC (although given that I believe the building we are moving to is the old shops, they'd have to make some major upgrades to make that happen).

There's over 5'000 employees that can retire from CP in the next 5 years, which also tends to go unmentioned, and we have a LOT of contractors which, as has already been mentioned, are either being offered positions or asked to leave.