[11][12] However, through at least the mid-1970s, Burlington Northern Railroad (predecessor of BNSF) performed train dispatching for the bridge, making final decisions from its Seattle, Washington office.

[13][14] In 1992, the Canadian federal government transferred operational and maintenance control, but not ownership, of the bridge to CNR as part of an entrustment agreement.

[15] In 2004, CNR and CPKC predecessor Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) began some coordinated operations to address growing trade volumes with Asia.

[19][20][21] Also, CNR entered an agreement with BNSF to gain operational, dispatching and maintenance control of BNSF track from the bridge northward throughout the Burrard Peninsula in exchange for CN assets in Illinois and Tennessee, such as similar control of interlockers in Chicago, Illinois and Memphis, Tennessee and other trackage rights.

Because of this agreement, CNR gained greater control of its main line corridor from Vancouver's North Shore, its Second Narrows Rail Bridge across Burrard Inlet, and Thornton Tunnel by connecting them through the BNSF track to the New Westminster Bridge and CNR's main line track south of the Fraser River.

[3] The bridge is a heavily used single-track railway that supports only low train speeds and is swung open for marine traffic for a significant portion of each day.

Because of this situation, studies have been conducted to relocate the northern terminus of Amtrak's Cascades passenger train service from Pacific Central Station in downtown Vancouver southeast by 21 kilometres (13 mi) to Surrey.

Lumber company Crown Zellerbach had requested a lift bridge conversion from 1936 into the late 1960s, because the tides, freshets, river channel currents, and limited horizontal clearance of the swing bridge prevented oceangoing ships from directly reaching its lumber exporting site upstream at Fraser Mills, British Columbia.

However, the estimate of 18 months to build a lift span was considered too much time for the rail network to survive without a working bridge.

[36] On December 26, 1975, the bridge was damaged when a gale wind pushed a drifting log barge into the structure, ripping out the 120-metre main span (380 ft).

The resulting legal action of Canadian National Railway Co. v. Norsk Pacific Steamship Co. became a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision.