Collaborative effort required | Increased rail volume depends on efficient loading and unloading at port, says railway
Canadian National Railway says western Canadian grain shipments have improved since Ottawa im-posed weekly minimum shipping targets nearly three weeks ago.
However, meeting a government-imposed target that requires Canada’s two major railway companies to move a million tonnes of grain per week could be difficult unless everyone, including the Canadian Coast Guard, pitches in.
“The Great Lakes have been frozen over by this winter’s polar vortex to a degree not seen in several decades,” CN president Claude Mongeau said in a March 24 news release.
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“We need urgent support from the Canadian Coast Guard to open navigation channels if we are to meet the federal government’s order … requiring CN to move 500,000 tonnes, or close to 5,500 cars of grain per week.”
CN also said terminal capacity on the West Coast could be an issue, especially if grain movements by rail continue to increase and Great Lakes traffic is affected by ice.
“With rail volumes quickly increasing … CN is concerned that grain elevator terminals on Canada’s West Coast could soon hit capacity, limiting total export volumes before the Great Lakes shipping lane re-opens and a strong export grain program can start at the Port of Thunder Bay, Ontario,” the CN news release said.
“Railways are not the only ones facing a significant challenge in moving this 100-year grain crop. It is becoming clear that other supply chain participants — grain elevator companies, shipping lines and ports — are also straining to handle the harvest.”
CN and its main competitor, Canadian Pacific Railway, have until early April to increase their combined grain movements to a million tonnes per week or face daily fines as high as $100,000.
To meet that goal, each railway company would have to move an estimated 5,500 hopper cars of grain per week to unload destinations.
But there are already signs that the government-imposed targets will not be met.
CN said March 24 that it spotted 4,456 hopper cars at western Canadian grain elevators in Week 33 of the 2013-14 crop year, which is the seven-day period ending March 17.
CN said the performance marked the third week in a row that the company has delivered more than 4,000 grain cars to prairie elevators. It says it has spotted an average of 4,366 cars per week since late February.
Mongeau said the arrival of more moderate spring temperatures has allowed the company to regain network fluidity.
CN spokesperson Mark Hallman said in an email that the company has taken steps to ensure it has adequate locomotives, cars and crews to move 5,500 cars per week.
The company added five percent more train operating crews in the first quarter of 2014 and supplemented its locomotive fleet by 10 percent to help deal with traffic volumes, Hallman added.
It is also adding 500 more grain hopper cars to its fleet, on top of 500 that were added last September when the enormity of the crop became more evident.
Hallman said critical factors in achieving the 5,500 car target include timely loading and unloading of grain cars and “encouragement from the federal government to act in a collaborative, as opposed to accusative, manner in the grain supply chain.”
