It may be a case of Back to the Future for the Farmer Rail Car Coalition.
The farmer-run organization made a serious but ultimately unsuccessful bid to buy the federal government’s fleet of grain hopper cars in the late 1990s.
The bid was eventually rejected by the newly elected Conservative government in May 2006.
Last week the government said that as part of its plan to deal with the economic crisis, it will sell off $10 billion worth of government assets.
Those assets have not been identified, but FRCC president Sinclair Harrison said it’s possible they could include the 12,000 grain hopper cars.
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“They haven’t specifically mentioned the cars, but those assets could potentially include them,” he said last week.
When the FRCC made an unsuccessful bid to buy the cars several years ago, their estimated value was around $120 million.
Harrison said any decision as to whether the FRCC would revive its plan to buy the cars if they were put up for sale would be made by the organization’s board of directors.
“The reasons for doing it now would be the same reasons for doing it then,” he said, namely to give farmers more control over the grain transportation system and to provide better returns for producers.
While the FRCC failed to buy the cars, the organization still exists, with a small budget and support from a number of farm groups.
One factor that could be an incentive to buy the cars is that the American Association of Railroads recently increased their permitted lifespan to 60 years from 50.
Most the cars were built from 1975 to 1985, meaning the cars will now be usable until 2035 to 2045.
“The best half of their life is gone but a lot are still in very good shape,” said Harrison.
