Ken Hoexter: It is the volume side.
Tracy Robinson: Yes.
Ken Hoexter: Okay.
Tracy Robinson: On the economic, that volume, which is tied to economic strength as opposed to the specific customer initiatives that we’re working.
Ken Hoexter: Okay. Thank you.
Tracy Robinson: Thanks for your question.
Ken Hoexter: Thanks.
Operator: Next question comes from Benoit Poirier from Desjardins. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Benoit Poirier: Yes. Bonjour à tous and happy retirement, Ed and congrats to Pat and Derek for their new roles. If we move to Eastern ports, there’s a labor agreement up for renewal with the dock workers at the Port of Montreal. And there’s also the potential strike with the St. Lawrence Seaway. So just wondering if you have seen any cargo diversions so far and kind of the actions that are taken so far to mitigate the potential impact of those labor agreements?
Doug MacDonald: Okay. Thanks, Ben. I’ll take that, it’s Doug. So on the St. Lawrence obviously, it’s brand new. The products that move on the St Laurence that really, I’ll say are complementary to the rail or really grain is the main one. So right now, there’s enough elevation capacity in Thunder Bay for this week and probably most of next week. And the strike loss, post that then we have offered a train package to our customers, to be able to move product into the East from Western Canada. So it would be – we’d start to look at some business there. You also have the iron ore that tends to move export via Quebec City from the Minnesota area. So we may – there may be some opportunities there as well, but most of that should just move to the talk like normal.
So I don’t see a lot of changes for us overall, as these moves forward. When you look at the Port of Montreal, we have prepared for that. We’re putting a package together to actually move a lot of our customers’ freight over the Port of Halifax. We’re only in the process now of going out to the market with that so that they know what’s available, and we’re just starting that planning now, but we do have the operational plan already in place.
Benoit Poirier: Okay. And just a follow-up on Contract, we’ve seen a great announcement over the last few weeks. What would be the next milestone to monitor, that?
Doug MacDonald: Okay. Contract curve, the next one will be really I think you will see a new RFP for a port operator. That will be the next big milestone for what they’re telling us. They’re going to start work on the dock as it is today or the waterfront as they call it. So that’s where that money is going belong. So they’re going to start there without a port operator being named. And then the port operator will be the next big milestone. So we’re looking forward to that as well.
Benoit Poirier: Thank you very much for the time.
Doug MacDonald: Sure Benoit.
Operator: Our next question comes from Chris Wetherbee from Citigroup. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Chris Wetherbee: Hi, thanks. Good afternoon guys. I guess I wanted to ask about headcount and resources, maybe in general. As you think about kind of reaccelerating the growth in this line of sight that you have the volume growth as we move forward into where do you think you are in resources. I guess, maybe asked another way, do you think that there’s a certain amount of volume growth that you can absorb with the head count and sort of the overall resource base that you have today? Or do you think you’ll need to be adding incrementally as we move forward?
Tracy Robinson: Thanks for that question, Chris. So think about it this way, we are resourced right now to move the volume that we have, but the resourcing decisions that we make are based on six or nine months from now. So we’re planning now for what we need out there. And as we think about it, think about the bulk business, that business is moving now. As that – if and as that grows, that’s new incremental train starts, will meet kind of the resources to that. If you think about the merchandise business, however, that has some quite significant room. If you think about even in this quarter, our volumes were down, for example, 5%. Our train starts are down 2%. So in running the scheduled operations, we’re maintaining the integrity and the discipline of that schedule, which means that our trains are running a little short.
So the first lift in volume, particularly merchandise is going to go on to the end of those existing trains. And there’s a tremendous amount of leverage there. And of course, that’s done with the existing crew base. On the international side, as that starts to ramp up, that also will be incremental kind of train starts. So we’re doing this planning now for next year, and we’ve got some hard to hire locations that we’re still working on. But other than we’re in great shape.
Chris Wetherbee: And 4Q should be roughly flattish or slightly higher than where we are from a head perspective?
Tracy Robinson: I think that’s pretty much baked right now. So yes, it should be about what we are now.
Chris Wetherbee: Thanks for the time.
Tracy Robinson: Thanks for the question, Chris.
Operator: Our next question comes from Steve Hansen from Raymond James. Please go ahead. Your line is open.
Steve Hansen: Yes, Thank you for the time. I’ll stick to the one question as instructed. It seems like everyone on this call doesn’t understand what that means. But in the case question for Doug or Tracy. Grain has been one of your biggest tailwinds year-to-date piggybacking off last year’s harvest. At this juncture, I think it’s fairly well known that this year’s harvest was anything but superior. I understand you’ve got a couple of weeks of tailwind from an early harvest, but I’m surprised your comments on the outlook were more balanced or cautious. You suggest it was quite bullish. And I’m just trying to square the two given the harvest backdrop. Thanks.
Tracy Robinson: Yes. So listen, the grain crop this year, it wasn’t a bad crop, I can tell you, but it was smaller without a doubt last year. Our lines in the north and the drought was a little bit – we didn’t have the same kind of drought conditions. And we’re moving a lot of grain right now. What it does mean, as Doug has said in the past is that it can – we can run out a grain to move a little bit earlier in the year next year. And that may be an issue in Q2, I guess, Doug. We’ve got on the offsetting, we’ve got a number of customer initiatives that are going to – that are starting to produce volume now that we think it’s going to be – it’s going to be a good offset to that. Doug, anything else?
