Canadian National Railway has two new programs it hopes will appease the special crops industry.
The guaranteed car order program gives processors an assurance that the boxcars they order will arrive when requested or else they will be compensated by the railway.
Customers can place boxcar orders up to eight weeks in advance. The requests will be filled on a first come, first served basis.
Once confirmed, the railway will either deliver the cars on the week requested or give the processor a $100 per boxcar credit for failing to live up to its obligations. If the processor cancels or changes a guaranteed order, it pays the $100 penalty.
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The second program will replace CN’s direct hit program. The west coast staging program allows smaller shippers to use rail cars for storage at strategic points along the way to the coast, rather than seeking expensive storage at the port. When they have amassed enough cars to make a full shipment, they can deliver the cars to export position.
The staging program applies to grain hopper cars and there is a $250 fee for either party failing to meet its obligations. CN will only make a certain number of hopper cars available for this program. If requests exceed car availability, the cars will go to the highest bidder.
Both new programs start on the shipping week that begins Oct. 28.
CN spokesperson Jim Feeny said the railway wanted to address concerns raised by special crops shippers, but he said the programs were not a knee-jerk response to a recent Canadian Transportation Agency ruling.
Earlier this year the agency ruled that CN had failed to provide adequate and reasonable service to Naber Seed and Grain Ltd. during last fall’s peak grain shipping period.
Naber, a special crops processor based out of Melfort, Sask., launched the complaint after receiving 67 percent of the hopper cars it ordered during the 12-week period ending Nov. 22, 2000.
The ruling was a landmark decision for the special crops industry, which has been lobbying the railways for better service for years.
Many special crops shippers contacted for this story were reluctant to comment on CN’s new programs, but those who did think progress has been made.
“These programs are a step in the right direction. It has been a struggle with railways in the past to take the special crops industry seriously,” said Monte Miller, chair of the Canadian Special Crops Association’s transportation committee.
He said the railways are starting to realize that special crops are here to stay and that a lot of product is moving through cleaning plants that are capable of shipping 25 cars of edible peas. The industry is becoming a bigger player in the grain shipping business.
Miller said now that the railways are on the right track for bulk shipments, the next step is to convince them to develop similar programs for intermodel movement and container traffic. The association’s committee will be meeting with CN this week to discuss the new programs.
Canadian Pacific Railway has similar advance booking and staging programs but these are only available for hopper cars. CPR’s AdvanceMax is eligible for 25- to 100-car blocks, while StageTrax can be used for smaller blocks. Those programs were introduced last year.
