Prairie farmers happy with last week’s ruling by the Canadian Transportation Agency may want to send a thank-you card to David Hatzenbuhler.
The rail transportation expert from Seattle provided the key evidence that led the agency to conclude CP Rail discriminated against grain in the winter of 1996-97.
“He was our most important witness,” said Canadian Wheat Board spokesperson Deanna Allen. “The crux of the case was the expert analysis.”
The CTA devoted six pages of its 37-page decision to a discussion of the testimony presented by Hatzenbuhler during public hearings held last spring into the board’s complaint about inadequate service by CP.
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Hatzenbuhler told the agency an analysis of CP’s own numbers indicated the railway gave preferential treatment to commodities other than grain, particularly coal, as it recovered from the impact of severe winter weather.
And the agency made it clear that it believed what he said: “The agency is of the view that the assignment by CP of available resources to grain traffic destined to the port of Vancouver differed from that assigned to other commodities.”
It went on to say while there may be valid reasons for discriminating among commodities in certain circumstances, CP offered no reasons for doing so and instead denied that grain was treated any differently.
In an interview from the Seattle offices of MainLine Management Inc., Hatzenbuhler said when he was hired by the board to analyze CP’s train movement, he had no preconceptions about what the outcome would be.
“But the weight of the various analyses that we performed certainly led us to the conclusion that there was a definite picture of grain, during a distinct and identifiable period, being handled in a way that was significantly different than for the other commodities,” he said.
The board had felt grain was being discriminated against based on the rapid turnaround of vessels picking up coal from Vancouver, compared with the backlog of grain boats, and reports of coal trains continuing to move while grain trains were being delayed.
“We knew anecdotally; we knew from seeing the figures (on vessels),” said Allen.
She added the board could have carried out its own analysis, but hiring a respected outside expert and using CP’s own data made the argument all the more credible.
Hatzenbuhler’s analysis showed that in the four months ending in mid-December, grain trains accounted for about 31 percent of CP’s bulk shipments, while coal accounted for about 50 percent.
During the next eight-week period ending Feb. 9, grain trains fell to 24 percent, while coal moved up to 55 percent.
Over the balance of the complaint period, ending March 30, grain trains remained at around 29 percent of total bulk train movement, while coal stayed at 53 percent.
“It is clear that grain experienced a disproportionately low level of train service during weeks 21 through 28 (Dec. 16, 1996, to Feb. 9, 1997),” said the agency.
CP said the complexity of the grain transportation system, compared with coal, made it more difficult to recover from the impact of the weather-related disruptions, but the agency said that doesn’t explain the service deficiency.
Hatzenbuhler said while he wasn’t familiar with the CTA’s decision-making process, he wasn’t surprised by the ruling.
He noted the agency gave the railway the benefit of the doubt by reworking some of his figures to exclude non-bulk cargo from the anal-ysis and extending the comparison further back in the crop year, when grain train volumes were lower.
“They tried to be as fair as possible. They narrowed the scope of the analysis to the benefit of CP,” he said, yet still came to the same conclusion. “We were confident that would happen.”
