WINNIPEG – Canada’s two national railways seem to have different track records when it comes to grain industry relations and performance this year.
Interviews with officials attending a grain transportation conference here last week said Canadian Pacific Railway would easily win a popularity contest over its rival Canadian National Railway.
“It’s clear that CP has a better relationship with its customers than CN in terms of customer service,” said Mark Hemmes, head of the federal grain monitoring agency.
A senior transportation official with the Canadian Wheat Board echoed that view.
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“Certainly we’re seeing CP take a more positive customer approach at a high level,” said Rick Steinke.
He said CPR seems more interested in engaging customers to find solutions to grain shipping issues.
Another industry official said many believe CN has been more focused on its shareholders than its customers in recent years.
One indication of the difference between the two railways is that CN has in the last few years faced a number of formal service complaints by shippers, an adversarial and expensive process.
That hasn’t happened with CPR, which has successfully used mediation services provided through the Canadian Transportation Agency to deal with some customer complaints.
CN has also been the target of considerable public and private criticism from some shippers for adopting an adversarial attitude at times.
Wayne Atamanchuk, assistant vice-president for bulk commodities for CN, defended CN’s performance and customer relations. He had no explanation for why CN has been involved in more service complaints than CPR.
“I can’t get into the heads of shippers as to why they’re choosing to target us, because I don’t think some of the issues we’ve been challenged on are unique to CN,” he said in an interview.
He rejected the suggestion that the number of complaints means CN provides poorer service than CPR, noting that CN has been moving significant volumes of grain and gaining market share.
“I don’t think increasing market share is an indicator of poor performance,” he said.
He also dismissed comments by shippers attending the conference that CN has been slower than its competitor to adopt a strategy based on pulling grain from the country to meet demand at port, as opposed to pushing supplies from the country to the port regardless of demand.
“I don’t accept that at all,” said Atamanchuk, adding that every player in the system has to perform for things to run efficiently.
He said occasionally CN has hauled grain to Vancouver and found the vessel was late, the terminal was plugged with the wrong grain and the cars couldn’t be unloaded.
“It’s not just us,” he said.
However Steinke of the CWB said there are “definitely differences in the approach” of the two companies.
“The level of service complaints reflect what has been happening,” he said.
