what is the bottleneck in rail transport

[bucket]

I would say 2 simple things for the bottle neck
1. The Rocky Mountains
2. Oil on rail because of the lack of sufficient pipelines .
Most other rail inefficiency’s are because of those two things.

What exaggerates the issue was the gutting of both rail lines by Harrison for shareholder profits .

No quick fix to any of it. Also additional rail through the Rocky’s would be astronomicaly expensive

As expensive as the lost opportunity to the economy of Canada?

[therealnorthernf]

U want a true fix.... send the grain south and get it on American rails.. if they have the capacity at ports to load more ships it would be welcomed business.. and probably cost us the farmers less.

[furrowtickler]

As expensive as the lost opportunity to the economy of Canada?

No , I agree Bucket , but no politician seems to understand.

[furrowtickler]

Also curious why Prince Rupert is not utilized more ?

[bucket]

No , I agree Bucket , but no politician seems to understand.

And now you have pinpointed the major problem......

They can ask the same question 20 times in the house about the Atwall affair but won't ask about agriculture ...that is a major economic driver in the country.

[Misterjade9]

I am just a dumb plowboy and I see a simple solution but it will never happen. We have established that the weather, the mountains, more oil by rail and railroad complacency our the factors affecting grain shipments. We also know that most of the countries that are competitors have the storage capacity to move their production into export position at harvest time, whether that is to port or short and medium term storage. We as producers shot ourselves in the foot when we took it upon ourselves to build massive amounts of on farm storage which should have been done by the grain companies. Now before you guys and girls bite my head off I fully understand we were forced to do that but all that has done is offloaded any responsibility of the grain companies. We know in this country that new pipeline construction is dead, we know that the environmentalists will never allow the twinning of any rails through the mountains and we know the railroads would never invest that kind of money anyways. Why do we not have inland ports on the east side of the Rockies, joint ventures between government, grain companies and the railroads? This would give allow producers to quit spending money on farm storage, would increase movement in the fall months when weather is better increasing cash flow, frees up elevator space, allows grain to be in an export position and gives the railways a shorter haul during the winter months. My thoughts are that the grain companies are spending their money in the wrong spot, we do not need more terminal space on the prairies we need port space, it doesn't matter how many terminals are on the prairies if they are all full. This idea would be an easier sell to the environmentalists would be a way of creating infrastructure projects on the prairies could use a P3 model where both private and government money is involved. It would even reduce some pressure on the railroads as producers that are close enough could deliver directly to these ports bypassing the rail system. This seems like a simple and reasonable solution to me, tell me what I am missing here that doesn't make this a viable solution.

[bucket]

Grain buffer facility on the west side of the mountains at lets say 3.5 million tonnes could make a lot of sense.

Fill it in summer and fall for winter shuttles.

[Kinger]

Too much demand on railways is the main issue, but even if we build every pipeline there will still be issues.

Heavy snow takes 2+ days to clear rail lines.

Landslides more.

Maintenance, inspections, etc.

Never gonna be a perfect system by any means. But definitely has room for improvement.

Lots of terminal expansion planned or completed mostly focused on storage and quicker car unload systems. G3 and AGT for example. Should help.

The thought graincos don't need to ship grain to make money is a bit weird. If they don't want to bid on commodities they just won't or drop there bids. Alot cheaper than backing up the entire system and paying some pretty hefty demurrage costs at the terminal.

[bucket]

Then why are the graincos not in front of mps explaining it....why are farmers having to do the bitching?

[wmoebis]

Why no stats on how many, for how long, what grain Co's and at what stations that contracts are behind and what it is costing grain companies?