15 September 2004

Message from CN regarding New IMX Domestic Reservation System

The following message is from the Vice-President of IMX at CN.

This is further to CN’s message in late July introducing our new IMX Domestic Reservation System.

For the past few weeks we have piloted the new system for reservations from Montreal. I am pleased to say, this has been a success, and we now look forward to rolling out the system across the network starting this week. Reservations for next week's (September 20th) trains will be generated and distributed using the new web-based IMX Reservation system.

Re-capping the changes that may affect you:

Reservations are integrated with CN's service scheduling system. This will automate the handling of connections, and service exceptions such as units left behind.

The reservation number is restructured to a format of: "RV" followed by 8 random numeric digits. This will permit flexibility in modifying reservations without having to cancel and re-issue new numbers.

Customers may enquire, via CN's e-business web site, the status of reservation numbers - whether they have been used and/or still active.

To protect customers' reserved capacity, additional edits will be performed at time of in-gate.

Validation will include:

equipment type
origin and destination
reservation number
effective dates
customer

In the event that units fail the validation, the driver may not be allowed to in-gate the unit.

We believe this new system will help us serve you better.

If you have any questions, please contact your IMX representative, or your CN Account Manager.