Remember when the two national railways in Canada kept asking for and getting the right to abandon rail tracks, and eventually rip them up for the value of the steel and railroad ties?
Today as it did then, it seems like such a bad policy, and waste of time, money, and efficient transportation.
At the Western Canadian Wheat Growers convention in Winnipeg in early January, a representative from the BNSF railway company that billionaire Warren Buffett owns, told the group of farmers how that company had spent 5.6 billion dollars to expand and upgrade. They bought 500 locomotives, added workers, but not only workers but incentives to load the freight cars quicker and with haste to make the system more efficient. Heaven forbid, BNSF even lets the market decide where the freight will go. Yes, instead of parking cars, locomotives and ripping up track for steel money, they build hundreds of miles of new track, and improving older track where feasible.
Not only did the Canadian railways in many cases abandon and rip up the track, they didn’t allow farmer groups and other shortline railway companies lease of buy those tracks so somebody would keep the rails moving.
Nope. That could compete for the same grain / product the big companies were shipping.
In some cases saner heads prevailed and just last week this announcement came forth. Saskatchewan’s 14th shortline rail company will hit the tracks between Melfort and Birch Hills this spring, thanks in part to an interest-free loan from the provincial government.
“We’re pleased to support the establishment of Northern Lights Rail and the expansion of our province’s network of shortline railways,” says Saskatchewan’s highways and infrastructure minister Nancy Heppner. “These railways provide grain producers and other shippers with an effective and competitive transportation option that helps to reduce the wear and tear on our highways.”
The Saskatchewan government gave the Kinistino-based company a $550,000 interest-free loan to assist their purchase of 59 kilometres of rail line from Canadian National Railway (CN). The province has supported the purchase of shortline railways by community groups, local stakeholders and local governments in the past by offering loans and advice.
Two points to consider - At least the rail line still exists and did go for scrap metal. Secondly, while a good thing to get the money to buy the rail line, there is a concern there might not be enough rail cars to do this track justice.
While Saskatchewan's 14th shortline railway could be in operation this May, but the lack of grain cars – especially special-order producer cars concerns the Kinistino farmer Wayne Bacon who chairs Northern Lights Railway, the group which plans to operate the 35 km of former CN track between Birch Hills and Melfort.
Bacon says just one of the issues is recent producer car ordering policy which does not allow new orders until previous orders are fulfilled.
Northern Lights shortline consists of four municipalities, the City of Melfort, village of Beatty and 70 farmer investors. Currently they have two loading sites on the line with plans for a third and own one locomotive.
Bacon believes that the often-discussed concept of joint running rights -with all rail companies sharing the tracks - would be an ideal start to sorting out the complex rail system to the benefit of all players.
However, he’s not optimistic joint running rights will happen any time soon.
Playing right into this, many grains industry players say grain is moving better than last year but last Tuesday the latest report from the Canadian AG Transportation Coalition showed that through the first 27 weeks of the current crop year, railways failed to supply over 22 thousand hopper cars which is about 11 per cent of shipper demand.
“Retaining rail infrastructure is important for supporting agriculture and economic development in the region,” says the Northern Lights Railroad president. “Throughout the purchase process, they established a good working relationship between municipalities and towns with great support from producers, tremendous support from CN and the Ministry of Highways and Infrastructure, too.
“We look forward to being a fully-operational shortline, including opening our two loading facilities in the near future.”
With the addition of Northern Lights Rail, Saskatchewan will have 14 shortlines and approximately 2,060 kilometres of provincially-regulated track.
That makes far more sense than abandoning those rail lines and selling the the rails for scrap metal and the railway ties for firewood, don’t you think?
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