CN Rail has responded to the federal government's request for an action plan on how it intends to clear the rail bottleneck in western Canada. The deadline set by the government was March 15.

Below is the plan posted to CN Rail's website:

The entire CN team remains focused on quickly improving the movement of the wide range of our customers’ goods. We are taking immediate steps to clear freight traffic backlogs and restore rail service levels.

Immediate operational actions to relieve and manage congestion in Western Canada

Temporarily restricting the flow of railcars to gain fluidity and speed, particularly between Edmonton and Winnipeg. For example:

- Tightly controlling empty CN rail car flows into Western Canada from other parts of CN’s network.
- Managing flow for frac sand orders to avoid further congestion.
- Returning empty propane cars from short-term staging locations in controlled fashion to Western Canada.

A 24/7 situation room of cross functional teams at our Network Operations Centre in Edmonton to review critical customer issues and to prioritize rail car movements.

Deploying qualified company officers into Western Canada to help run trains and move customer traffic.

Offering incentives for key operating employees to delay retirement and postpone vacations, and for recently-retired operating employees to return to work.

Medium- and longer-term steps to maintain improved operational and service levels

In the second half of 2018, taking delivery of the first 60 new locomotives of our recent 200-unit order.

Investing over $250 million this spring and summer to build new tracks and yard capacity to efficiently handle more traffic. Work includes:

- Between Edmonton and Winnipeg: Five stretches of double track in eastern Alberta and Saskatchewan along CN’s mainline across the Prairies.
- Alberta: A new long section of double track west of Edmonton on CN’s mainline corridor to B.C. and the West Coast and new yard capacity in the Edmonton area.
- Manitoba: Yard capacity improvements.

Additional passing sidings allow trains moving in opposite directions to operate faster through the corridor.

- Northern B.C.: Four additional train sidings and two siding extensions for long trains on corridor between Prince Rupert, B.C. and Jasper, Alberta.
- Edmonton to Vancouver corridor: A siding extension north of Kamloops.

CN will continue to invest for the long term in line with the economic outlook to meet the growing demands of our freight customers.