While the railways continue to complain about slow grain car unloads and congestion at the port of Vancouver, the Canadian Wheat Board says it’s happy with the way the transportation system is running.
“From our perspective, in the current situation the railways have the car fleet to meet the targets that have been set,” said CWB information officer Rhea Yates.
She said that while the overall co-ordination in the system could be better, the board’s export program is in good shape and grain is moving to overseas customers at a good pace.
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While the board says it’s satisfied, the railways have been issuing weekly press releases saying the rest of the system hasn’t been able to keep up with their standard of performance.
“Following more than a month of poor unloads at Vancouver, the system has improved at port but is now strained in the country,” said CP Rail vice-president Rick Sallee, adding congestion at Vancouver has slowed the return of empty cars to country elevators.
After months of being criticized for failing to meet unload targets, both railways have made much of the fact that they have been exceeding targets in recent weeks.
CP has publicly blamed the situation on poor co-ordination of vessel schedules and port invent-
ories, and has used the occasion to call for a complete review of the grain handling and transportation system.
CN has also begun issuing weekly updates listing the number of cars delivered to ports and commenting on the transportation situation.
In its most recent commentary, the railway said strong demand for grain at Thunder Bay, Ont. has caused shippers to shift orders from the West Coast to the Lakehead. As a result, CN’s unloads at Vancouver and Prince Rupert were below target in the week ending June 7, while unloads at Thunder Bay were 18 percent above target.
“The sudden shift of cars to Thunder Bay reflects the volatility of the grain market,” said CN vice-president Peter Marshall, adding it shows how weekly shipping targets are planning tools which must be adjusted as market conditions dictate.
The question of just what those weekly unload targets represent will be a major issue in the wheat board’s complaint to the Canadian Transportation Agency about poor rail service this winter.
Yates said the decision by the railways to start issuing weekly press releases now that they are meeting or surpassing unload targets is tied to that complaint.
“It seems when you read some of the comments being made, they are pointed in the direction of the CTA,” she said. “There aren’t any real issues that they’re bringing forward at this time.”
