#FREETHERAILS

[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.

[macdon02]

It'll be easier to mandate the rail co to run 100% biodiesel then take their rail. Which would likely ensure they keep the crushers serviced........

[oldjim]

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.
"quote"

Certainly that's true. That was also the arguement used by supporters of the Crow rate, i.e. in exchange for all the land grants (CP) received to build the lines the rail companies would haul our grain "in perpetuity" for about 25 cents per bushel. Those land grants and the benefits the rail companies received were conveniently forgotten when Paul Martin stood up in the House of Commons and during his austerity budget, shot the Crow down for good.

Sad fact is, the only agriculture sector government is willing to and has been able to take away benefits from over the years is the producers themselves. Grain companies and railways won't be touched, neither will seed and fertilizer companies. They have the money to get what they want, farmers have less than 5% of the votes at election time.

Again, not slagging your idea but I've been to this circus too many times to believe change is possible.

[dmlfarmer]

I want to make one more point. Everyone on this forum thinks railways were built to move farmer's grain. I would argue they were built to move people out west and to supply those settlers with eastern goods. Grain was simply a great back haul at the times the rails were laid. And yes, as farming took hold, agreements were instituted like the Crow Rate to ensure grain would be moved. But farmers and governments have sold, or allowed many such agreements to lapse.

Furthermore, you talk of the public grants to build the railways. The railways were paid in money and land to lay the track. There never was an agreement that this track would be public in fact, in CPs case they were actually given public financed and built track as part of the agreement to build the mainline. CP track has never been a public utility. We only have legislated level of service expectations. I wonder what a court would say is the level of service a railroad has to supply is given these service levels were mostly written before fertilizer, pesticides, and zero tillage. Rail never knew they would have to carry as much grain as they do; or oil, or containers.... and those shippers surely have the same expectation of service as farmers do.

[Rareearth]

What's in it for the Fed?
- massive productivity, efficiency, and competitiveness improvements for a exporting nation.
- fed govt would benefit from massive taxation revenue generated
- ecconomic stimulus that printing cannot do on its own. JOBS, JOBS....
- win a election, first massive economic stimulus in decades
- not a subsidy, it generates revenue streams