Media Contact: 
Will Wiquist, (202) 418-0509
will.wiquist@fcc.gov
For Immediate Release
CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY TO PAY $1.21 MILLION 
TO RESOLVE FCC WIRELESS RADIO LICENSING VIOLATIONS
  --
WASHINGTON, August 15, 2016 – The Federal Communications Commission’s Enforcement 
Bureau today announced that Canadian Pacific Railway Company will pay $1,210,000 to resolve 
an investigation of the railroad company’s operation of more than a hundred wireless radio 
facilities in the U.S. without prior FCC approval, and for failing to obtain FCC authorizations for 
the transfer of control of thirty wireless radio licenses.
“Wireless facilities are critical to the safe and efficient operation of our nation’s railways,” said 
Travis LeBlanc, Chief of the Enforcement Bureau. “We take seriously our responsibility to 
ensure that the ownership and operation of all such facilities comply with the FCC’s licensing 
processes.”    
In 2015, Canadian Pacific, formally called Soo Line Corporation, conducted an internal audit that 
revealed extensive non-compliance with FCC licensing regulations, and the company 
subsequently disclosed its violations to the Commission.  In addition to paying a monetary civil 
penalty, the company will also implement a 3-year plan to ensure compliance with FCC 
requirements, and it will continue to maintain an internal compliance plan that the company 
implemented prior to its discovery of the violations.  
Soo Line Corporation is the wholly-owned U.S. operating arm of Calgary, Alberta-based 
Canadian Pacific Railway Corporation which provides rail and distribution services throughout 
Canada and parts of the United States.  In 2008, the company acquired several railroad companies 
in the United States holding FCC authorizations in the wireless radio services.  Radio transmitting 
devices are widely used in the railroad industry for voice and data transmissions related to the 
safe operation of freight and passenger trains.  The company’s 2015 internal audit of its FCC 
authorizations uncovered unauthorized transactions dating back to 2008, and it also revealed that 
Soo Line and its predecessors had constructed, relocated, modified, or operated more than a 
hundred wireless facilities without FCC approval, beginning as far back as 1979.
The 3-year compliance plan requires that the company designate a senior corporate manager as a 
compliance officer; establish operating procedures that require employees receive specific 
training in the areas of unauthorized transfer and operation; maintain a compliance checklist to 
ensure that covered employees follow specific steps in initiating wireless communications; 
establish a compliance manual that explains the communications laws that apply to the company; 
institute a compliance training program for covered employees, and report any additional 
violations to the Commission within 15 days of discovering them.
The Order and Consent Decree are available at:  
https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-16-861A1.pdf  
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This is an unofficial announcement of Commission action.  Release of the full text of a Commission order 
constitutes official action.  See MCI v. FCC, 515 F.2d 385 (D.C. Cir. 1974).