Canaries in the elevator shaft.

[Blaithin]

Lots of factors in an elevator.

How cooperative is the rail with it? Do they want to service it? Do they want rail upgrades and a compressor added? How many cars can they load? How long does it take to load?

How easy is it to get staff? Farmers like the terminals close to them but that can mean lower population to pull staff from.

What is the condition of the terminal. Cost of repairs these days, there’s some places that just aren’t worth the cost to repair and upgrade.

How close is it to other terminals from the same company? With trucking these days, it can be more economical to shut a terminal and have the contracts at other locations. Why struggle to find staff and finance repairs when you can just get farms to haul another 30-60 minutes and condense costs.

Theres a lot of competition out there now. Terminals struggle to do the 400-500k tonnes they could do before, not because they can’t handle it but because they can’t buy it. So shut an elevator and send that product to two others, up what they handle. Cost of running for 200k vs 350k is going to be pretty similar so why not handle more at one and shut the other.

[farmaholic]

......enter bucket.

[bucket]

......enter bucket.

Thank you for the invitation farmaholic. Moose Jaw has facilities that are approaching 100 years old while the Eyebrow elevator sits idled. There is no way it couldn't be used as a flax facility or canola storage to feed local crush announcements or feed grain to be loaded any day of the week to a local feedlot.

Better yet they could add a couple cans to the side and make it working facility so farmers didn't have to drive and extra 2 hours. They could also pick up 70 cars and 30 at Eyebrow and still send a unit train into Moose Jaw to help logistics for farmers.

I digress , when people start talking about maintenance costs and you compare the facilities , its becomes easier to recognize why the Pools went broke when some can justify on labour and maintenance costs, without understanding what farmers have accepted as downloaded costs.

There is also the manager factor where sometimes a company can justify a closure by putting in a prick that farmers won't deal with.

[TASFarms]

Are those oil and gas facilities, or farmers/residences?

No idea. Maybe they were just tryn to make me feel better

[AlbertaFarmer5]

No idea. Maybe they were just tryn to make me feel better

Trying to make you feel better because you're not paying either, and now you know that you're not the only one?