Farmers in drought-stricken west-central Saskatchewan didn’t need water just to make their crops grow this summer.
They also needed it to make their new grain-handling facility rise from the ground.
West Central Road and Rail Ltd. started building a producer car loading facility near Eston at the beginning of July and originally hoped to have it operating by Oct. 1.
But that schedule fell victim to the same dry weather that ruined area crops.
“Laying down the dirt pad that the cement pad sits on took us forever,” said company president Rob Lobdell.
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“It was so dry, we had to haul just truckload after truckload after truckload of water in.”
Eventually the pad was laid, the cement poured and the bins put in place, and now the farmer-run company hopes to open for business in the third week of October.
“It’s been an amazing thing,” said Lobdell.
“All of a sudden it takes shape and becomes part of the skyline.”
But again, the lack of rain this summer could play havoc with the company’s plans.
“There’s no question about it, we’re going to have to scramble to get grain,” he said.
“Guys are hurting and volumes are way down from what we’d anticipated and hoped for.”
The company had been planning to ship 50,000 tonnes of grain through its facility in the first year of operations, but that target might be difficult to attain.
“Whether or not that grain is out there is hard to say,” Lobdell said.
“But I’m reasonably confident we’ll come close.”
On the bright side, it seems most of the grain that was grown in the area is good quality and should be in demand.
The facility has capacity to handle 25 rail cars and includes 2,700 tonnes of storage.
However, Lobdell said grain won’t be staying in storage for longer than 15 days, which is the time between train runs.
“We’ll empty it out and fill it right back up,” he said.
The first rail car that is loaded with grain and hauled away will mark the culmination of a three-and-a-half year struggle by local farmers and communities to keep service on a network of CN railway lines running from just west of Saskatoon to near the Alberta border.
West Central initially tried to buy 300 kilometres of track that CN was planning to abandon. Last summer CN said it no longer intended to abandon the lines, so West Central shifted its focus to building grain handling facilities along the line to ensure service would continue.
A public share offering in June brought more than $800,000 from local investors. Combined with a $400,000 investment from the Saskatchewan Grain Car Corp., it gave the organization more than enough to go ahead.
Lobdell said the company will launch another share offering in February or March to raise money to build the second of what will be at least six such facilities along the lines.
