Two parallel strikes could shut down Canada's second largest railway.

About 5,100 workers at Canadian Pacific Rail will be in a legal strike position at 12: 01 a.m. Sunday morning.

Both the Teamsters and Unifor are poised to walk off the job if they can't reach a new contract.

In Windsor, less than 30 workers represented by Teamsters are involved in this dispute, but a strike could still have a significant local impact.

The Windsor employees are locomotive engineers and conductors.

The last time CP workers went on strike was May of 2012. At that time, there were only 28 CP employees in Windsor, represented by Teamsters Division 528.

Union leaders could not be reached for comment today, but in a statement on the Teamsters website, president Douglas Finnson says their primary stumbling block is safety.

Finnson says CP is “either unwilling or unable to comply with the collective agreements that require train crews stop operating and obtain rest after 10 continuous hours of work.”

CP officials counter by saying "We also proposed a model that will improve the scheduling of regular time off and quality of life while enhancing our service and efficiency, but the union has not been interested."

If talks break down and a strike begins CP officials say trained managers will step in to try to keep the trains moving. Even so, the impact locally could be much broader than the cp strikers.

“It is frustrating to have your business affected by something you can't control,” says Terry Berthiaume, president of Essex Terminal Railway.

Berthiaume says they too have a contingency plan, including helping some of their customers transfer their shipments to CN or CSXT, two railways not effected by the contract dispute. But it won't be enough for all the product currently moved by CP.

“Some business may not be able to reroute that way perhaps some loads will wait, others will be lost to truck,” says Berthiaume. “There's going to be a huge effect on ETR.”

Berthiaume says if the strike goes long, the impact will mount up and could force them to issue layoffs to ETR employees.

It is important to note talks are ongoing right now in Montreal with the help of mediators and conciliators appointed by the federal government.

Essex MP Jeff Watson says he's confident a deal can be struck before Sunday morning. He says last year 94 per cent of all contracts in Canada were settled without a work stoppage.