In the course of its four-month-long lockout of CUPE Local 7000 members, Southern Railway kept a fraction of its trains running by using excluded managers as replacement workers. But a railway can’t run unless its track is maintained. Track maintenance is work that CUPE members do and not many managers are qualified to operate the machinery that’s involved. On January 23, 2015 Southern Rail brought in a contractor, A&B Rail Services, to replace a number of railway ties at a switch area on Annacis Island.