REGINA – Shipping Canadian grain through the U.S. rail system is a viable business proposition and not just a threat, says a southwestern Saskatchewan producer after a meeting with American railway officials.
“There’s been talk right through to Winnipeg about doing this,” said Swift Current producer Ron Gleim after speaking to Burlington Northern railway officials last week. “There are American facilities within 60 miles (96 kilometres) of the border and (some Canadian producers) are hauling twice as far as that now.”
He said Burlington Northern officials, one from Minneapolis and one from Winnipeg, told southwestern Saskatchewan producers they were interested in taking Canadian grain.
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Gleim, a member of the South-West Regional Transportation Council, said his group has spoken with American grain companies and the port of Portland about trying test runs of Canadian grain through the American system – also an interest of Burlington Northern.
The American northern rail system has extra capacity for Canadian grain, so it really could act as a third rail route for prairie producers, Gleim said. Burlington Northern officials told his group they would have no problem handling six million tonnes of Canadian grain per year, depending on when it was shipped.
Sending two officials from distant offices proves the company is seriously interested in post-Crow Canadian grain, Gleim said. That could work well as a counterweight to Canadian rail companies, whose new freedom to cut branch lines could hurt southern prairie producers, he said.
Branch line abandonment fears
Producers “have got absolutely no control over the system today and they’re thinking if they can move some grain south that they’ll have some leverage” in the Canadian system, Gleim said.
A specific worry in southwestern Saskatchewan is the fate of the branch line that runs from Shaunavon southwest to Consul, then loops back east to run for about 130 kilometres along the American border.
With the Canadian Wheat Board and the federal agriculture minister saying they will allow producers to find the best ways they can to get their grain to port, Gleim said many producers feel using the American system is a good method of bypassing the numerous perceived problems of the Canadian system.
“I don’t think anybody really wants to move their grain through the U.S. system, but there’s a lot of frustration” with the entire Canadian system, from grain companies on the Prairies to labor problems on the west coast, Gleim said.
To avoid the frustrations of the Canadian system, some producers might use the American system, even if it costs 10 cents per tonne more, “just to show them that we don’t have to deal with you guys,” said Gleim.
A public meeting for producers to discuss a test run of the American system is currently being organized, he said.
