Negotiations between CN Rail and West Central Road and Rail Ltd. have broken off, but that doesn’t mean it’s curtains for farmers wanting to ship grain on CN branch lines in west-central Saskatchewan.
A recent proposal by a group of CN’s unionized employees to buy the branch-line network that stretches from just west of Saskatoon almost to the Alberta border seems to be gathering steam.
If that falls through, farmers still have the option of shipping grain by producer-loaded cars now that the lines have been taken off of CN’s discontinued list.
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West Central did just that on Nov. 24, loading a 117-unit train of grain destined for Thunder Bay, Ont. The grain is now en route to port.
West Central Road and Rail has loaded more than 1,800 producer cars since December1997. The group wants to continue building on that shipping experience.
“There is a definite growing interest among farmers to use producer cars as a competitive option to improve their bottom line,” said West Central Road and Rail president Rob Lobdell.
“WCRR wants to make it a better option by minimizing risks and maximizing returns to farmers.”
The most recent producer car train was loaded with more than 10,000 tonnes of durum. West Central officials say they saved farmers more than $100,000 in elevation fees by loading the cars themselves.CN Rail spokesperson Jim Feeny said producer car shipments are not cost efficient for the railways.
“It is certainly more labor and time intensive dealing with producers who are new to this kind of thing than it is dealing with grain companies who do this day in, day out across their network.”
He said the producer car trains require multiple stops to pick up cars and there is often disagreement about where those stops will be and how long the rail cars will be sitting at locations waiting to be loaded.
“All that stuff has to be worked out and working with producers certainly is more labor intensive, more time intensive,” Feeny said.
“As we’ve done more of these I think we have gotten better.”
Feeny said talks with West Central have broken off after several years of discussions because the two parties couldn’t come to terms on key issues like the purchase price or which lines would be taken over.
The lines in question have been taken off CN’s discontinued list and put back into retained status, which means the whole process is back to square one.
But Feeny said the idea of selling the branch lines to a short line operator isn’t dead. The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employees, the union whose employees operate those lines, has proposed buying them and establishing their own short-line railway.
The union would form partnerships with local communities and farm groups to set up what it calls co-operative short lines. It’s a proposal that on the surface appeals to the CN brass.
“We’re waiting to see what comes back from the Brotherhood because we think this idea has potential,” Feeny said.
