By Alan Freeman, iPolitics.ca; November 28, 2019
At first glance, it looks like one of the strangest business deals of the year. Last week, Canadian Pacific Railway announced that it had purchased the Central Maine and Quebec Railway from its American owner, a company called Fortress Transportation and Infrastructure Investors LLC, for $130 million (U.S).
The Central Maine owns 774 kilometres of rail lines in Quebec and Maine, including the stretch at Lac-Megantic, Que., where a runaway train loaded with crude oil exploded in the centre of the small town in 2013, killing 47 people. At the time, it was called the Montreal Maine and Atlantic Railway.