Gravelbourg line between Hodgeville and Mossbank to be removed for salvage as part of three-year discontinuance plan
Southern Saskatchewan is losing another branch line, this one south of Moose Jaw, between Hodgeville and Mossbank.
Sources in the area confirmed last week that the Canadian Pacific line, Gravelbourg subdivision, is being removed for salvage.
Crews began removing the rails earlier this year near Hodgeville and are working their way toward Gravelbourg, near the line’s halfway point.
CP officials said the line was placed on a three-year discontinuance plan in 2006, in accordance with Canadian regulatory processes.
The discontinuance process concluded last September.
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A total of 86 kilometres of line will be removed.
Traffic volumes on the line have been declining over time. It used to service a handful of grain elevators, including a Viterra-owned concrete facility in Hodgeville, but most of those facilities stopped shipping grain by rail a few years ago.
Since 2013, the line has been used primarily for storing out-of-service rail cars.
“Volumes on this line did not support continued operations by CP in the long term so the line was advertised for sale for continued railway operations as the next step in the regulatory process,” CP said in a June 8 email to the Western Producer.
“The line was advertised for sale and there was an expression of interest (EOI) by a local group but an agreement was not reached to purchase the line for continued operations.”
Gravelbourg resident Louis Stringer said efforts to buy the line and operate it as a short line began to lose momentum after the Canadian Transportation Agency assessed its value at $7.9 million in 2013.
At that price, the line was valued at more than $90,000 per kilometre. A decade or so earlier, discontinued lines in the same region were selling for less than $12,000 per km.
Stringer said local residents interested in saving the line negotiated with CP for several years but the two sides were never close on a price.
The CTA valuation was significantly higher than what the local group had expected, he added.
“We went to CP with bids but it was never close to what they wanted,” said Stringer, who chaired a local bid committee.
“CP always stuck to their guns that they could get at least $7 million for the line. Our figures were never close to what they wanted.”
Richard Boire, a seed processor from Gravelbourg, said most of the grain produced in the area has been moving by truck for several years.
Grain companies that used to operate along the line closed their facilities years ago. Some grain was shipped through producer car loading sites but volumes were limited due to the lack of modern unloading facilities.
The Viterra concrete elevator in Hodgeville and a wooden facility in Gravelbourg, owned by RW Organic Ltd., of Mossbank, are the only ones left on the line.
“There were a lot of producers that used to support this line but with the grain companies moving to larger terminals, guys have been hauling quite a distance for some time now,” said Boire.
“Producers today don’t want to load their own cars. Most guys are too busy. They’re getting larger. They want to pull into a modern terminal, pull the hatch and be gone in five minutes.”
Even if the local group had succeeded in buying the line, assuring a reliable supply of cars would have been difficult.
The short line would have relied on CP to deliver empty cars via the CP Expanse line that runs south of Moose Jaw.
“CP is not going to drop off 30 cars at Mossbank and say, ‘OK, fill the cars.’ Unless you can fill 100-car lots on this line once a week, they’re not going to look at you,” Boire said.
“It’s unfortunate but that’s economics. This isn’t the first line to be abandoned and it probably won’t be the last.”
Stringer said he would have liked to see the provincial government play a more proactive role in saving the line.
“It’s sort of a paradox because the province is spending millions to upgrade (Highway) No. 43 that goes west of here and No. 58 that goes (south) to Lafleche,” he said.
“I think it’s a short term decision that’s going to affect the future of this area. It just seems like in this province, we’re creating winners and losers — the people who have infrastructure and the people that don’t.”
