Weekly rail car unloads at the West Coast hit their highest level all crop year last week.
But grain shippers say that kind of peak performance will have to be maintained for some time to make up for damage created by poor rail service over the last few months.
Unloads by the two national railways at the two west coast ports totalled 4,456 cars in the week ending March 3.
That’s well above the average weekly unload of 3,078 cars since mid-December.
Shippers say if the railways can do that for one week, they should be able to keep doing it.
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“They’re obviously capable of unloading at that level and that’s what we’d like to see continue,” said Maureen Fitzhenry of the Canadian Wheat Board.
“That’s why we’ve been pressuring as hard as we can for them to apply the resources necessary to do so.”
Canadian National Railway spokesperson Jim Feeny said the railway will do what is necessary to deal with the shortfall that has developed.
“We’re committed to getting through this and to get the backlog cleared up as quickly as possible,” he said.
However, Feeny said the railway couldn’t offer a specific timetable as to how long that will take.
For example, while last week was good, that was followed by the March 3 derailment of a westbound grain train west of Jasper, disrupting operations for two days.
Ironically, while the strike at CN got lots of national attention, grain car unloads during the two-week strike averaged about 3,100 cars, slightly better than the 10 week period before the strike.
Grain merchants say there’s no question they have lost potential sales as a result of poor rail service the past 10 weeks.
Uncertainty over transportation forces companies to be less aggressive in pursuing sales than they might otherwise be, for fear of being unable to fill contracts.
Some grain buyers may have decided to take their business to suppliers other than Canada because of concerns about reliability of supply. As well, grain companies have been unable to schedule loading at country elevators because they’re not sure when cars will arrive.
Shippers say it’s difficult to tote all that up and attach a dollar figure to it, or to put a price on intangibles like Canada’s reputation among buyers, but the damage is substantial.
“It’s a death of a thousand cuts,” said Agricore United chief executive officer Brian Hayward.
“It’s not just one item that jumps out.”
Gord Bacon, president of Pulse Canada, said shippers of special crops, who face more complex shipping logistics than bulk shippers, are extremely frustrated.
“The strike was just an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence that says the industry is having a lot of trouble,” he said.
Feeny said the railway is well aware of the problems being faced by special crop shippers and is trying to resolve the situation.
“We’re working to develop programs for specific shipping corridors where a lot of product is waiting to go out,” he said.
Bacon said what’s needed is an overall review of the entire grain transportation shipping system, including such issues as improved forecasting of shipping demand and transportation supply, developing more storage and shipping capacity and increased accountability for the railways.
Hayward agreed, saying what’s needed over the long term is “symmetrical balance” in transportation policy.
“Now, if we as shippers fail to perform, we get charged penalties by the railways. If the railways fail to perform, there is no penalty,” he said.
“To me, that is fundamentally wrong.”
