A group of municipalities is trying to save rail service in east-central Alberta.
Palliser Regional Municipal Services, an organization representing 26 local governments in the area, is looking into the possibility of buying 320 kilometres of Canadian National Railway track.
The line, made up of three subdivisions, runs from Oyen, near the Saskatchewan border, to Lyalta, just east of Calgary. CN issued notice in November of its intention to discontinue service on the lines.
If it disappears, there would be no rail service in a rectangle bounded by Calgary, Medicine Hat, Provost and Wetaskiwin, an area covering roughly 80,000 sq. kilometres.
Read Also
Land crash warning rejected
A technical analyst believes that Saskatchewan land values could be due for a correction, but land owners and FCC say supply/demand fundamentals drive land prices – not mathematical models
“If this line closes, all of east-central Alberta will not have any rail service and will be reliant solely on a series of two-lane highways,” said Palliser chief executive officer Dave Amos.
“The long term implications of that could be devastating.”
Amos said those would include:
- Increased use of the road system for commercial purposes resulting in higher repair and maintenance costs for the province and local municipalities.
- A negative environmental impact as a result of replacing energy efficient trains with less efficient trucks.
- Limiting any prospect of attracting new industries to the area.
- Eliminating any possibility of linking the area with commuter rail service in the Calgary-Edmonton corridor.
CN said the line handles only sporadic local traffic and is not economically viable for the company.
“We have no traffic currently wanting to move on this and no prospect of any orders,” a spokesperson said in an interview several weeks ago.
The only customer is a farmer who owns an elevator on the line at Rosebud, roughly midway between Calgary and Drumheller, who ships 50 to 100 cars a year.
Palliser recently obtained a $245,000 grant under the provincial government’s Rural Community Adaptation Program to produce a plan for retaining rail service.
Amos said the money will be used to determine whether a viable business plan can be put together.
That will include gathering information on support programs available from senior levels of government, preparing case studies of how other regions or municipalities have dealt with the same issue, identifying business opportunities associated with the rail line and determining the net salvage value of the line.
Assuming all that produces a positive result, a business plan will be put together outlining all the options and the costs of acquisition.
Another issue to be determined is whether Palliser would engage an existing short-line rail company to run the line or do so itself.
“Right now everything is on the table,” Amos said.
Public meetings on the proposal have been scheduled for Hanna June 4 and Drumheller June 11.
The process for discontinuing service is laid out in the Canadian Transportation Act.
A railway must amend its three-year plan and then advertise it for sale after one year, which in this case will be November 2009.
If there are no expressions of interest to buy the line, it must then be offered for sale to federal, provincial and municipal governments for the net salvage value of the line.
If that doesn’t produce a buyer, the rail company can discontinue operations on the line.
“We’re really looking at the end of the year or early next year before everything is said and done,” Amos said.
