Road Bans are on their Way!

[SASKFARMER3]

Well well well its that time of year when road bans hit Saskatchewan. I this year am thankful that CN was able to move very little grain this winter because lots of orders but no cars. Thank you Cn now that road bans will arrive they will flood the elevator with cars and say they aren't filling them. Ah life of a farmer things just cant get better.

[hobbyfrmr]

SF3, board grains...order your own rail car through CGC. Load it. Ship it. Maybe you have been too busy to save $1000.00/car by doing it your self. A rail car is a 3300 bushel bin of wheat on wheels. Watching your posts for about 5 months...sounds like you have decent enough equipment, and it sure sounds like you can/could do a days work.........then again... who cares about $1000.00. If a person has a b train semi..and can do a days work with a hired man 4 rail cars can be loaded...on the frost... A good manager can email rail car applications to the CGC and then email instructions to his hired men what week the cars are confirmed to arrive. A good manager could email how to load at least 3 rail cars from Hawaii and/or skiing. the hired men could do 4 without the manager guy.. but you know..he has to be around..make sure its right. When I think of railroads..and lazy complaining farmers, Joni Mitchell starts singing in my head "Dont it always seem to go, you don't know what you got 'till its gone". 4 rail cars...$4000.00 Then again, like folks say, $4000.00 thats F'all for a big outfit.

[SASKFARMER3]

Great post only problem is CN has not placed on Rail car for any one in our area who wants to load producer cars. CN is the problem. Big problem. Its not lazy farmers son.

[hobbyfrmr]

Order the rail car through the Canadain Grain Commission. Do it yourself. If memory serves me, section 323 of the grain act says, producer cars get priority for the top 3% of weekly rail car allocations, or something like that. Its the law. The first couple of times it might be awkward but it gets easier every time. Order the rail car yourself, do not let others/other companies etc do it for you. More folklore I guess, but I recall someone saying the pecking order is first, producer cars, then CWB cars, then ViterraCargill etc, then specialty like peas and lentis. I used to broker and I would spot rail cars all over the province for farmers to load. The trick was to order in farmer name through the CGC. The RR do still screw things up sometimes it takes 2-3 weeks, ultimately the car shows up better than grain companies, they will drag you around for months if they order it.