HALIFAX -- With nearly a week on the picket line under their belts, striking CN Rail workers have gotten used to their place on the sidewalk -- but that doesn't mean it's comfortable.

"It's hit or miss," said Kyle Dimmock. "Like today, it's nice and warm. It's a nice day, we've got a lot of people out. Other days, it'll be freezing, raining, windy."

About 3,200 CN workers walked off their jobs a week ago over concerns about long hours, fatigue and dangerous working conditions.

The strike is already having an impact.

About 70 workers at the Halifax Autoport in Eastern Passage, N.S., will be laid off on Thursday.

Others will stay behind to load and offload vehicles arriving by boat.

As it stands, the facility appeared to be largely empty on Monday.

There are other concerns, too.

Quebec has expressed concerns about propane shortages and the Maritimes might not be far behind.

"It's affecting the whole country," said Ian Wilson, president of Wilsons Fuel, one of the largest distributors in the Maritimes. He says supplies can being trucked in as a stop-gap, but that can't last.

Wilson would like the see the dispute settled at the bargaining table, but says Ottawa may have to intervene.

"It's a utility," Wilson said. "It's a monopoly and it's an essential service, and with anything that meets those criteria, we just can't have long supply disruptions."

In a statement issued Friday, CN says managers were operating about 10 per cent of the railway network.

That means limited amounts of various commodities are moving across the country.

This includes container traffic to keep Canada's ports fluid to be able to return to normal operations after the strike.

"There's a lot of places, yes sir, where we would rather be," Dimmock said.

But for the Autoport workers, it's walking the picket line for now in a dispute that has others increasingly walking on pins and needles.

For its part, the Port of Halifax says container cargo operations are fully operational, but the authority is monitoring the talks closely.

Also today, three Maritime senators sent a letter to the prime minister, urging him to reconvene parliament to debate back-to-work legislation for the CN workers.

So far, the government has resisted going that route.