Older folks are sometimes skeptical of new ideas, possibly because they’ve been around long enough to understand the consequences of unfounded optimism.
But many members of the older generation are jumping on board what is still a new idea in Manitoba – a short-line railway owned and operated by farmers.
“What we’re really finding is that older people are coming forward…. We have (a) shareholder who bought in recently, that man is 94 years old,” said Darin Bouchard, who farms near Cypress River, Man.
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Bouchard and dozens of other producers from Treherne, Glenboro, Holland and Wawanesa, Man., have bought shares in River Hills Railroad Inc. The farmers and other shareholders are planning to buy 100 kilometres of track from Canadian Pacific Railway between Rathwell and Nesbitt, Man.
CPR planned to abandon the line but agreed to sell it to River Hills Railroad for $7 million. The short-line shareholders must provide CPR with a $700,000 down payment by the end of February and must complete the purchase by May 31, according to a memorandum on the short-line’s website.
Sales of shares have been successful so far, but a final push is needed to reach the objective, Bouchard said.
“We had a hundred shareholders in the initial seed money drive. Right now we’re going back to those shareholders and they’re putting money in,” said Bouchard, River Hills Railroad vice-president.
While a few investors live in the towns along the line, most shareholders are farmers, Bouchard said.
The shortline would serve an area that produced 1.41 million tonnes of grain, or the equivalent of 17,279 rail cars, in the 2007-08 crop year. In the offering memorandum, the company noted its business plan is based on transporting no more than 10 percent of that grain production during its first five years in operation.
If the group’s bid is successful, River Hills Railroad will become the second short-line railway in southern Manitoba.
In June of 2009 Boundary Trail Railway Company (BTRC) began hauling cars on 37 km of track between Manitou and Morden.
Travis Long, BTRC general manager, said short-line operators shouldn’t assume that local producers will automatically use the railway.
From the middle of June 2009 to Aug. 1, 2010, BTRC shipped about 500 cars, which was at the low end of its goal for the 2009-10 crop year, Long said.
“Generally speaking we’re very pleased. But we see that there’s going to be a lot of work ahead of us to be successful in the long term.”
One obstacle, he explained, has been convincing farmers that short-lines provide better service than the major railroads did in the past.
“One of the challenges is that a lot of people loaded producer cars years ago and their experiences weren’t necessarily very good,” he said.
For instance, the railways would often give a farmer minimal notice to deliver grain.
“His phone would ring and it would be someone saying a (producer) car was left there half an hour ago and you’ve got 18 hours to fill it.”
The farmer would scramble to fill the rail car but it would end up sitting on the track for a week or more, before the rail company got around to picking it up, Long said.
“So there was a lot of aggravation with that.”
Despite problems around perception, Long said BTRC expects to meet its goal of shipping 550 rail cars in 2010-11 crop year.
