#FREETHERAILS

[Klause]

Tom,


The idea of my proposal is open running rights. Imagine having a shortline like Mobilgrain able to run trains out to thr coast... or a niche market like trains to Iowa with oats. Once CN and CP realize that the grain won't still be there even ever they feel like hauling it, performance will come.


I also feel my proposal, with independent inspections and reporting of all commodities moved, will echo with "laymen" Canadians considering rail safety is a hot button issue right now.


Performance isn't a problem only in grain. Sawmills are full of product that is sold but can't be moved to market. Oil batteries are full and can't move to market. This spring we will find fertilizer trains that can't or won't move.


The minute we allow competition on the lines things will change.... what's to say Richardson and P and H won't have their own trains then?

With one line running each way we can basically have a resource pipeline on rails.

[bucket]

Klause

Is this a result of being in a truck all winter?

Very good ideas. Can't devils advocate much on your ideas.

[bucket]

How did that episode of Seinfeld go when George and Elaine went without sex?

I hope you are not depriving yourself for the better good of farmers klause? That truly is taking one for the team.

[oldjim]

While I'm as frustrated as anyone else with rail non-performance, I'm going to play devil's advocate for a minute.

Particularly point 2: boils down to confiscation of private property by government. That's going down the path of the Sask NDP and potash back in the 70's. Are the rail companies going to be compensated for this? And who pays? Do we eventually re-nationalize CN and bring CP in under a "Peoples' Railroad"? And when the grain companies keep screwing us on the basis to we eventually nationalize them under a Peoples' Grain Company? Oh wait, we just got rid of that.

Sure, I'm carrying it to an absurd extreme. Fact is under this federal government it'll never happen. It won't happen under a liberal government and the NDP will never form government. At best we'll see a little more diddling and a few brave and hollow statements from Ritz cracker but in the end nothing will change.

[Klause]

Technically cn and cp received grants to build the Rail lines... along with property from the Federal government. This was in exchange for specifically moving western canadian farmers' grain.


Obviously today we export far more than just grain... However the Rail lines aren't really holding up to their agreement.


Plus what about all the lines they have abandoned? Most were built with public money.


The Rail companies must remain private just like trucking companies are private. However I'm saying the underlying infrastructure should be public.

We don't have Qline building a highway only they can use, do we?


In exchange for this the freight cap should be removed.... competition will keep rates fare... and if they aren't well we can always form a coop and pull our own trains.

[bucket]

Oldjim

Sadly you hit the nail on the head.

But nationalizing a railway is different than a potash or grain.

The railways were built for expanding devices across the country.

Grain and potash industries wouldn't exist without them. And won't exist if the railways are allowed to run the government.

You can not truck potash or grain to the tune of 75 mmt a year. The highways will be destroyed. Actually already are.

[bucket]

Devices. Should have been areas.


Jesus this phone replaces words with jibberish.

[dmlfarmer]

I too am as frustrated as anyone about grain movement. But I think rail is only part of the problem. We simply do not have the rail capacity for everything that everyone wants to move. Nor do we have the terminal capacity or loading ability to handle everything farmers want to move when they want to move it.
Tom talks about needing a "pull" system. That is exactly what we had under the CWB for wheat. The CWB would match sales and movement capacity with delivery opportunities first through quotas and than contracts and nearly everyone on this list rejected it. So the CWB was the problem and we had to get rid of it.
Now everyone is blaming the rail roads because they are the most visible link in the chain. Yet who is coordinating the grain needed for ships with what is in farmers bins in the country? Just multinational players who can just as easily meet a sales order with grain in Australia or the US which they already own in company owned facilities at ports in those countries.

And this bastion of free enterprise is applauding nationalization of the rail system??? There are many consumers who will argue that instead all farms should be nationalized, after all, isn't food as vital as the railroads and why should a few rich 1%er farmers control the food supply Canadians rely on. Time after time throughout history land has been taken from rich landowners by governments.

No Klause, it is our entire grain system that needs an overhaul and not just railroads. Nationalization of tracks will not solve capacity and in the long run the movement problems, just shift it up the chain.

Open running rights is one thing, nationalization is a very dangerous suggestion.

[dmlfarmer]

If you honestly believe it is just rail that is the problem, would it not be better and just as cheap as nationalization and the costs that this would occur (economic, social, and political) to build a new track to port? But then again, we run into port capacity problems especially when farmers want to ship at harvest, the grain they contracted in the spring before they knew grade or quality they would have and for which there may be no sales opportunities for months.

[binthere]

just a thought. with the implimentation of the north american free trade agrement are there not provisions in place to hinder such proposals as to renationalise such services or property. such as once government owned railbeds. hope im wrong.