A level of service complaint by a group of grain shippers against Canadian National Railway will carry on until late January.
An effort to resolve the issue through mediation was abandoned Sept. 27 and the case has now been put in the hands of the Canadian Transportation Agency for a decision.
The agency told the two sides last week it will give a ruling by Jan. 19, 2008.
Five small grain shippers and the Canadian Wheat Board say CN has failed to follow a July directive from the agency ordering the railway to change its car allocations programs.
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They say the rules put small shippers at an unfair disadvantage in getting rail cars.
CWB spokesperson Maureen Fitzhenry said the shippers group, which calls itself Cars, was disappointed the issues couldn’t be resolved through mediation.
“That would have been our preference,” she said. “The prospect of facing drawn-out proceedings before the CTA is something we thought all parties would want to avoid.”
Under the terms of the mediation neither side is allowed to talk about the details of the process.
Fitzhenry said while the mediation produced “very good dialogue” between the shippers and CN, eventually both sides accepted that the issue could not be resolved.
The agency is also considering a request by Cars for an interim order to prevent CN from allocating any cars under its contentious advance products program until the case has been resolved.
The agency last week gave the two sides until Oct. 12 to make submissions on that issue.
The level of service complaint filed by Cars has its origins in a complaint launched earlier in the summer by Great Northern Grain of Nampa, Alta.
GNG’s complaint centred on a decision by CN to eliminate 50-car advance bookings and offer only 100-car trains that had to be booked for 42 consecutive weeks.
GNG, with the support of other small shippers, farm groups and provincial governments, said that froze small and single point shippers out of the advance booking program and forced them to rely on the unpredictable weekly general car allocation.
The agency agreed and ordered CN to make a number of changes to its awards program.
CN says it did just that, but the Cars group said the changes fell short of what had been ordered by the agency.
CN officials could not be reached for further comment.
Meanwhile, the government of Saskatchewan has sent a letter to the transport agency supporting the shippers.
Agriculture minister Mark Wartman said in the letter CN’s focus on advance products programs results in an inadequate supply of cars for general distribution to smaller grain companies and single point shippers.
“CN’s continued actions which negatively impact rail service has been to the detriment of these shippers, as well as to farmers, their marketing agency the CWB and to end-use customers,” he said.
The governments of Alberta and Manitoba are also expected to intervene on the side of the shippers.
