The Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) is calling on Transport Canada to implement the National Supply Chain Task Force’s recommendation to expand railway inter-switching zones in May 2023.
Railroad inter-switching was identified as a key policy that could be introduced quickly to encourage more competition in the rail transportation system when the supply chain task force released its final report in October 2021.
“Inter-switching as a competitive tool for captive grain shippers and shortline operators is practically non-existent in a province that produces over half of Canada’s grain exports,” APAS President Ian Boxall said in a release Friday.
Inter-switching is the transfer of traffic between two railway companies. One railway takes a shipper’s freight part of the way between origin and destination. It then transfers the freight to a competing railway, with which the shipper has made arrangements for the rest of the haul. The transfer takes place at an interchange – where the lines of the two railways meet.
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