CAMBRIDGE -- Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. is ready to move its slow freight trains out of the way on Hespeler Road -- permanently.

In return, Waterloo Region would scrap plans to build a $25-million bridge over the tracks just north of the delta intersection. Construction of that two-year project was set to start next year.

"This is a great deal for the region," Cambridge Mayor Doug Craig said Monday.

The deal is good for two reasons, Craig said.

CPR agrees to reduce by 75 per cent the number of trains crossing the four-lane highway daily and upgrade the tracks to let the trains move faster.

The proposed deal also requires CPR to remove most of its noisy shunting operations from Cambridge to a new rail yard now under construction west of Ayr, he said.

Even if the bridge eventually has to be built, removal of some of the tracks means the project will cost taxpayers less, Craig said.

"This is the same proposal that Cambridge made three years ago, and then CP rejected it at the last minute," he said.

That deal would have seen taxpayers pay to move the annoying railway operations out of town instead of building a bridge.

"Right off the top we save five or six million dollars," Craig said.

Today, about 30 trains cross Hespeler Road daily. They're limited to 16 kilometres an hour and often stop across the tracks for 10 or 20 minutes as the cars are shunted back and forth. Long trains wait to enter the main CPR tracks along Samuelson Street.

Traffic backs up for kilometres.

Here are the key points of the proposal regional politicians consider today at a 1 p.m. meeting of the works committee at regional headquarters on Frederick Street:

- CPR proposes to dismantle "key components of its marshalling yard" in Cambridge by the end of 2009.

- CPR promises to have an average of no more than six trains a day cross Hespeler Road, with only three crossing between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m.

- CPR will pay to upgrade the tracks to allow trains to travel up to 40 km/h and upgrade signals on the main line to prevent trains having to wait.

- The region will abandon its plans to apply for a federal order that CPR pay a share of the railway bridge on Hespeler Road.

-If CPR meets its obligations and the region goes ahead with building a bridge anyway by 2017, the region would have to pay a pro-rated share of the railways track upgrades.

-If CPR doesn't meet its obligations and the region builds a bridge by 2017, the region won't have to pay anything toward the track upgrades.

The deal must be signed by both sides by the end of October.