A group of small grain shippers pursuing a level of service complaint against Canadian National Railway suffered a setback last week.
The Canadian Transportation Agency rejected the group’s application for an interim order that would have suspended CN’s advance car booking programs for 2007-08 until the complaint was resolved.
The agency will issue a decision on the broader service complaint by Jan. 19.
The complaint is that CN’s programs disadvantage small shippers by placing conditions on car awards that they can’t possibly meet.
In asking for the interim order, the shippers had argued that if CN was permitted to go ahead with its car awards, a significant number of rail cars would be reserved for large shippers for the rest of the crop year.
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But in a ruling released Oct. 19, the agency dismissed the application, saying it would be unreasonable to order the railway to suspend its programs at this time.
The agency based its decision on two main factors.
- It said there was no evidence that the shippers would suffer irreparable harm or be forced out of business if CN went ahead and awarded cars.
- It found that CN would suffer greater harm than the shippers if the interim order was granted.
A large number of CN’s other customers would have to come up with new transportation strategies if the programs they normally use were suspended, said the agency. On the other hand, the shippers “may have possible difficulties” if the order was not granted.
Trent Weber, director of transportation and marketing for the Inland Terminal Group, said the shippers who launched the complaint were disappointed.
He said the impact of the decision on the shippers group won’t be known until CN indicates exactly how it will proceed with car allocation for the coming year.
“They haven’t yet released their plans so it remains to be seen,” said Weber.
In its decision, the agency said the railway’s decision to suspend its controversial GX100 program, which gave large shippers the opportunity to book in advance 100-car trains for 42 consecutive weeks, should free up more cars for other shippers.
Mark Dyck, manager of rail logistics for the Canadian Wheat Board, which joined the shippers in the complaint, said it’s too early to know if that will be the case.
“We need to see how many cars will go into general allocation, how many will be up for bids and how many will go in the other GT programs,” he said.
CN officials could not be reached for comment by the deadline for this story.
