CNCP Shipping grain performance... NO APOLOGY HERE!

[TOM4CWB]

Tom Jackson Hunger Strike DAy 30...

"The Canadian Press
2015-03-30


Ottawa doesn't renew grain requirements

CN Rail said it supports the federal government's decision not to renew minimum weekly grain volume requirements for the country's two largest railways.

The Montreal-based railway (TSX:CNR), which has been critical of government intervention in the matter, said the supply chain to move grain now is "fully back in synch" as it continues to move grain from the 2014/2015 crop year.

Canadian Pacific Railway (TSX:CP), headquartered in Calgary, said it will continue to move Canadian grain "consistent with demand from its customers."

Transport Minister Lisa Raitt and Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz announced Saturday that the government wouldn't extend the unprecedented step taken a year ago to impose minimum grain volumes, adding that grain now is moving adequately through the system and the new grain crop is of average size.

Faced with complaints about a backlog following a bumper crop, Ottawa initially imposed minimum weekly volume requirements for 90 days.

It then enacted the Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act in May that, among other things, required the railways to move at least 500,000 tonnes per week until the end of the 2013-14 crop year. The minimum threshold was subsequently raised to 536,250 tonnes and extended to March 28.

CN and CP moved more than 50 million tonnes of grain in 2014, exceeding the minimum volume requirement by 5.5 million tonnes.

Western Canadian shipments from ports are 31 per cent higher than in 2013 and 25 per cent higher than the five-year year average, the government said in a news release."

While western grain growers have contracts delayed in 2015... for months... while CNCP have never made more money in the history of their Railroads... (CP nearly 1B$... the most profitable product hauled by their trains) Canadian Grain growers are loosing over $5B from the reduction in services to gain railroad profit... in the same time frame oil shipments have expanded exponentially.

In Jackson v CNCP... the Alberta COurts clearly placed the run away profit issue back in the governments court... individual grain growers (as well as class action attempts) will be smothered by the millions of $$ of defending lawyers... to use 10 unit freight trains locomotives to squash any flea/graingrower that might want reasonable service and costs from CNCP.

AS Grain Growers in Western Canada... our marketing costs rose 10 times more... than CNCP profits did.

I object.
Canada lost... at a great cost... while CNCP shareholders lined their pockets.

CNCP... Please take the 'writ of execution' off western Canadian Grain farms you have enforced with impunity!

Sincerely,
Thomas R Jackson

[bucket]

By special request of John Baird it wasn't renewed.

Thank you to the conservatives for insulting my intelligence again.

That's a vote getter. FFS.

[TOM4CWB]

Grain Growers of Canada say reform needed.

Dateline:

"Pushing for rail reform; Ottawa won’t renew regulations that require minimum grain shipments. Farmers say they’ll press to change the law

The federal government has stopped telling railways how much grain to haul, but farmers and agricultural companies are promising to find new ways to ensure they get the service they need from Canadian National Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd.

The group that represents the major grain companies says it will push Ottawa to change the laws that govern railways so the country’s trade in wheat, canola and other crops is driven by market demand, and not constrained by a limited number of rail cars, locomotives and train crews.

Wade Sobkowich, executive director of the Western Grain Elevator Association, said the group is urging the government in its review of the Transportation Act to better link railways’ service levels to demands of commodity shippers. The group, which represents Viterra, Cargill and other companies that buy and sell crops globally, is also seeking the power to reach contracts with railways that specify weekly car orders, backed by the right to use a government-appointed arbitrator to settle disputes.
The federal government on Saturday said it would not renew measures put in place a year ago that required the railways move a minimum amount of crops every week, noting CN and CP had exceeded the thresholds and the backlog is at a historically normal level.
The regulations were enacted in response to complaints from farmers and grain companies, which said poor rail service was keeping a record crop from reaching foreign buyers, hammering farm cash flow and damaging Canada’s reputation as a reliable trading partner.

The grain industry said the poor service was a reflection of railway cuts and a focus on other, more lucrative commodities such as oil.

The rail companies denied these claims and said the harsh winter forced them to run shorter, slower trains for safety reasons. They said they moved record amounts of grain after a record harvest.

On Monday, spokesmen for both railways welcomed the removal of the thresholds, which had been recently lowered to reflect the reduced backlog and the smaller harvest in 2014-15.

Mr. Sobkowich said the recent minimum standards were set “very low” and expected the railways would continue to meet them without the threat of a fine from the government.

“In the longer term, we have to understand what permanent measures will replace the thresholds to ensure that Canada moves to a demand-based system as opposed to today’s rail-car-supply-based system,” Mr. Sobkowich said in an interview from Winnipeg. “Right now the railways offer a certain level of supply, a certain level of service, and that drives how much shippers can sell.

“How are we going to create a more permanent solution, not only for grain, because we’re not the only ones with problems, in a way that allows us to grow Canada’s economy?” Mr. Sobkowich said. “We can’t export more coal and forest products and manufactured goods and grain with the same rail network that we have today and the same number of locomotives, same number of rail cars. … We need the railways to expand that capacity. If our objective is to expand Canada’s economy, then we’re not going to do that without some major attention paid to the rail system.”

The grain industry said one of the unintended consequences of the minimum volumes rule was that rail companies focused on elevators and railroads connected to the three major ports – Vancouver, Prince Rupert, B.C., and Thunder Bay, Ont. – while service suffered on smaller, slower rail lines and those that went to the United States.

Growers of such smaller crops as malting barley, lentils and oats that are sold to buyers in the U.S. or feed mills in B.C.’s Fraser Valley complained their rail service did not improve under the government intervention.

Gary Stanford, who farms in Magrath, Alta., saw this firsthand at his local elevator, which has grain capacity for 120 rail cars a month but was only getting 14. “I said if I brought you a couple car loads of flax, would you put it on train cars for me?

They said we can’t get any [rail] cars,” said Mr. Stanford, who is president of the Grain Growers of Canada.

In a phone interview, Mr. Stanford said the group “can live without” the railways’ minimum shipping thresholds, but will keep an eye on the weekly volumes and will lobby for changes in the review of the Transport Act.

ID: GAM.20150331.rbcdrailwaysgrain
PUBLICATION: The Globe and Mail
EDITION: Ontario
DATE: 2015.03.31
SECTION: Report on Business
PAGE: B1
BYLINE: By ERIC ATKINS
WORD COUNT: 745

[bucket]

These guys should be forming a rail customer group with oil potash grain coal and others.

One spokesman and quit ****ing around. They just did that in the states.

A service industry should never have the ability to limit wealth creating industries in a country like canada.

[TOM4CWB]

<a href="http://s142.photobucket.com/user/tom4cwb/media/GetAttachment1_zpse13tespl.jpg.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/tom4cwb/GetAttachment1_zpse13tespl.jpg" border="0" alt=" photo GetAttachment1_zpse13tespl.jpg"/></a>

[TOM4CWB]

Bucket, The Shippers have done this. The CTA review is doing this.

[bucket]

Tom

What is the name of the industry shippers group in canada?

[farmaholic]

Ergo regulation. Or, somethings would just simply be better in Crown control. OMG, am I in for a tongue lashing now. The only thing I wouldn't like, would be the likely inefficiency of that but this lean mean model we have now hasn't served us very well either.....

It is in this exporting Nation's best interest to have an effective transporting infrastructure to move our resources to port.

Fire up the Zeppelins?

[Hopalong]

Post office, old Air Canada, old CNR, Atomic Energy of Canada, Farm Credit of Canada?
Trend has been away from crown corporations.

[farmaholic]

Boy some have become so efficient they don't even provide service.

[bucket]

That's it.

Good job farmaholic I was looking for that description.

Canada post thinks it's more efficient to have a contractor use a bobcat every day to clear in front of outdoor mailboxes than have a post office clean a 2 foot sidewalk with a shovel.

And cn - private or government held. What's the difference?

[bgmb]

Clearly nobody realized what taking away the cwb has done to rail logistics.

[bucket]

It is pretty sad that the cwb could manage logistics better than graincos within their own facilities.

I thought the cwb was incompetent. And the graincos would handle grain within their own systems better.

I stand corrected. The graincos are far more incompetent.

Wow.

[farmaholic]

bgmb, I am on record as saying there should have been some things salvaged and that there was some level of expertise to the old system. AT THE VERY LEAST TRANSITION INTO THE OPEN MARKET, NOW ALL WE HAVE IS A MAJOR CLUSTER ****. THEY HAD FOUR ****IN YEARS TO EASE INTO IT. CHECKS AND BALANCES. REPORTING AND TRANSPARENCY. ACCOUNTABILITY.

[TOM4CWB]

ALberta Courts... and CNCP enjoy trying to make life as difficult as needed... they think we will 'Shut Up' and be quiet!

<a href="http://s142.photobucket.com/user/tom4cwb/media/TRJ%20v%20CNCP%20Writ%20of%20Freedom%20Mar%202015_ zpskc0jftj0.png.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r113/tom4cwb/TRJ%20v%20CNCP%20Writ%20of%20Freedom%20Mar%202015_ zpskc0jftj0.png" border="0" alt=" photo TRJ v CNCP Writ of Freedom Mar 2015_zpskc0jftj0.png"/></a>