SASKATOON – It didn’t take long for some familiar disagreements to surface in the latest review of rail branch lines on the Prairies.
More than 20 grain industry representatives sat down with the National Transportation Agency’s Marian Robson for the first meeting of the branch line review committee last week in Regina.
“They just automatically say the lines should go and let’s be done with it,” said George Burton, a Humboldt, Sask., farmer representing the National Farmers Union on the panel.
Critics of branch line abandonment like Burton say some want to use the committee to simply rubber-stamp the rapid abandonment of hundreds of kilometres of light steel, low volume branch lines without serious study.
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Those on the other side say they are frustrated a formal review is needed in order to abandon such obviously uneconomic lines.
Larry Maguire, president of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association, said no time should be lost in eliminating high cost lines and making the Canadian handling and transportation system more competitive with the U.S.
Sinclair Harrison, president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, hopes this review will finally settle some unanswered questions about the costs and benefits of rail abandonment.
