----- Original Message -----
From: Malcolm Laughlin

Posted by: "Kurt Laughlin" There is a similar principle with airlines called cabotage which holds that
a foreign airline cannot transport passengers between two US locations -
they can only take people into or out of the country.
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The railroad situation isn't really like cabotage. Cars between points in New England and the midwest could move freely over Canadian routes, and cars between NB and Montreal could move through the U.S. Another reason that cabotage doesn't apply is that there were no Canadian railroads between points in the U.S. or U.S. railroads between points in Canada. For example, the CP line across Maine was actually a U.S. corporation with its stock owned entirely by the Canadian company. Anyone know of any exceptions to this. GN to Vancouver ?

The specific rule on Canadian cars was that if not returned empty they had to be loaded to or via Canada. Someone may want to check me on this, but I believe that a shipment between Chicago and Portland routed GTW/CN/GT could be loaded in a Canadian car.
----- Original Message -----

Well, I did say "similar" :-)

Actually, if you consider airliners as airborne cattle cars (which they pretty much are these days. . .) cabotage sounds quite like the railroad situation. A plane can be loaded in Maine and fly over Canada on its way to Minneapolis or Seattle. I believe they could even stop there so long as no one gets on or off. And, if a Canadian airliner has no passengers booked on the trip from Miami to Toronto, it flies empty. It can't be used to take passengers to Buffalo first.

KL