UNITY, Sask. (Staff) — The railways and others in the grain industry haven’t kept pace with production and marketing changes being made by farmers, says a CN Rail official.
The mix of crops being grown by prairie farmers is changing dramatically, said Jim Feeny. This has put complex new demands on the handling and transportation system.
“Farmers are changing and I don’t think the industry has kept up with it,” Feeny told 21 farmers attending a public meeting sponsored by the railway last week.
That’s one of the reasons for last fall’s rail car shortage, he said, and it has prompted the railways and others in the system to look at changing the way they do business. The priority must be to come up with a better way of predicting demand for rail cars.
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Must act more quickly
“We have to find ways to be more responsive to these changing markets, to forecast them more accurately if we can and just find ways to react more quickly,” he said.
In addition, CN Rail is considering adding more cars to its basic grain fleet, which consists of 2,000 hopper cars it owns, and 9,300 government and Canadian Wheat Board cars.
“We are evaluating whether we need to increase our base fleet,” Feeny said in an interview after the meeting. “Are the economics there that would justify going out and buying new cars? We don’t know yet but we’re looking into it.”
Lease from the U.S.
Both national railways also lease cars from the U.S. during periods of peak demand. CN has at times had as many as 5,000 American cars in its grain fleet. Right now, the railway’s total fleet is around 14,000 cars.
During the meeting, the railway officials faced questions about last fall’s rail car shortage and problems moving cars in January.
Marshall, Sask. farmer Lorne Pattison criticized CN for not providing enough cars to move crops to market, particularly special crops like peas.
“I just don’t think they’ve kept up with what’s happening out in the country,” he said. “The railway should have known there was a lot of special crops out there.”
But Feeny told the meeting the railway can’t base its transportation planning just on what farmers are growing. It has to be given an estimate of sales volumes, and when and where the commodities will be shipped.
“We can’t go out and spend money in the fond hope that the sales will be made,” he said.
Unity farmer Doug Sword told Feeny that farmers’ demands for rail service will continue to change in the next few years. Farmers are switching to high-value crops like canola and pulses, which are sold on the open market and require a more flexible and responsive transportation system.
For example, grain companies and other shippers should be allowed to provide their own rail cars without penalty.
The railways say that may be feasible for occasional unit-train shipments from a single point to a single destination, but the most efficient use of railway resources is to have a pooled supply of rail cars available to all shippers.
