The company that monitors rail performance and grain movement for the federal government says putting more grain cars on Canadian rail lines will not guarantee better service.
In fact, it will probably have the opposite effect.
“Don’t think that by throwing a whole bunch of rail cars at this situation that you’re going to fix it because you won’t,” said Mark Hemmes, president of Quorum Corp.
“In all likelihood, if you try to do that, it will restrict movement because you’ll congest the system.”
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Farmers who are desperately seeking ways to move more grain off the Prairies are asking questions about the size of the grain car fleet in Western Canada.
Earlier this week, Canadian Pacific Railway president Hunter Harrison issued an open letter to the public, offering the company’s view on rail performance and constraints in the grain supply chain.
He said putting more hopper cars on the rail system would do nothing to improve grain deliveries.
“Some have called for CP to add more rail cars and locomotives,” Harrison wrote.
“Adding more cars to the system when it is congested and being negatively impacted by weather is exactly the wrong thing to do. It is like adding more cars to a highway at rush hour — everything moves slower.”
Hemmes offered a similar view, suggesting fleet size is not the best way to measure capacity.
Capacity is gained not just by throwing rail cars at the problem,” he said.
“Capacity is gained, and probably more efficiently gained, by moving cars faster.”
Hemmes said it’s difficult to track the size of the grain car fleet now in service in Western Canada.
“That’s a black art,” he said.
“There’s a portion of both fleets that will cycle back and forth into the United States … so trying to fix a solid number to it is difficult.”
Other railway analysts have said some cars that are still part of the fleet have been parked temporarily. They are not technically in use but are available and can be returned to active service if the railways deem it necessary.
Industry observers estimate the size of the western Canadian fleet as low as 15,000 cars., while others put the number as high as 25,000 to 30,000.
Recent changes to the Grain Monitoring Program are expected to give grain shippers a more accurate read on a number of key railway statistics, including the size of the fleet in active service and the number of cars that are cycled in a given time period.
Various organizations own the current hopper car fleet, including the Government of Canada, CWB, the Saskatchewan Grain Car Corp. and the Government of Alberta.
The railway companies also own and lease cars, but there are no public figures denoting fleet sizes.
