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Tag Archives grain transportation

News

Pulse Canada podcast focuses on grain transport

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Pulse Canada has launched a new weekly podcast on transportation of grain in Western Canada The podcast features Greg Northey, Pulse Canada’s vice-president of corporate affairs, interviewing Milt Poirier, who manages the AgTransport Coalition, which was created nearly six years ago to monitor the performance of railways in terms of grain movement. The coalition produces […] Read more
This CP derailment in February near Guernsey — the second in two months near the Saskatchewan hamlet — prompted the federal transport minister to restrict the speed of trains carrying crude oil or liquid petroleum gas. Those rules, which could have impacted movement of other rail freight, have been dialled back under certain conditions.
News

Minister revises order on rail speed limits in cold weather

Higher-risk trains can back up other rail traffic; revised order eases some restrictions

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The federal transport minister has revised an order that railways feared would unnecessarily slow down freight traffic on frigid winter days. The new rule dials back one issued last spring after the fiery derailment of a CP Rail train carrying crude oil near Guernsey, Sask. in February. Although the order by the federal transport minister was […] Read more
Grain movement has been phenomenal since spring, but the coming winter will test the capabilities of both railways.
News

Will the gusher of grain movement continue?

Shipping records have shattered but the big test comes when the snow flies

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The grain transportation system has been ‘pounding it,’ with monthly records falling like flies through spring, summer and even into harvest. So will it continue? That will depend on sales and demand from other sectors that ship by rail, say experts. “We’ve done very well in the aftermath of everything that’s happened in the last […] Read more
News

Railways say they’re more prepared than ever

Increased capital spending and better technology will improve performance, CN and CP both say

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When the federal government passed the Transportation Modernization Act in 2018, the headline news was the requirement for railways to negotiate level-of-service agreements with grain companies — and face penalties for poor service. But the act also requires the railways to produce ‘winter plans’ to show how they’ll keep grain moving when the weather turns […] Read more
G3’s newly opened terminal in North Vancouver — which can load up to 6,500 tonnes an hour — is the latest improvement to a shipping network that has been moving unprecedented amounts of grain during the pandemic.
News

Railways ‘blowing the doors off’ with grain movement

It could be a record year for movement but bottlenecks remain despite heavy investment

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Grain is flying off the Prairies now that it’s not competing with other sectors for space on the rail network. “We’ve always said that the terminals, the grain companies, and the processors feel that they can move more,” said Steve Pratte, manager of policy development at the Canadian Canola Growers Association. “This year, we’ve had […] Read more
News

The grain trains just keep getting bigger

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Less than a year after loading the province’s largest-ever grain train, Paterson Grain’s Foothills terminal at Bowden has upped the record by a wide margin. The terminal recently loaded 16,313 tonnes of grain on 167 new high-capacity hopper cars — 10 per cent more grain than on a 147-car train last summer. The train was […] Read more
Anti-pipeline blockades — like this one in Edmonton in mid-February — are only part of the reason
why grain is backed up. But the situation will take months to fully be resolved.
Crops, News

Grain is moving but it will take months to catch up

Canada’s reputation as a reliable grain supplier has taken a hit

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There won’t be a quick fix for a ‘perfect storm’ that has set grain movement back by at least three months. The problems started with the late harvest across the Prairies followed by the week-long CN Rail strike in November and then cold weather and mudslides. By the time the anti-pipeline rail blockades hit in […] Read more
A ghostly view of ships anchored in Vancouver’s Burrard Inlet on March 2. These are just a small fraction of the dozens of freighter and container ships anchored in the Gulf Islands and along the coast of Vancouver Island — all waiting for the backlog at the Port of Vancouver to be cleared.
News

Rail delays have everyone ‘ripping their hair out’

Every West Coast anchorage spot is filled as ships wait for rail traffic to get back to normal

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It was a cold and rainy day — a gloomy but an apt setting for producers and grain industry officials touring the Port of Vancouver and witnessing the backlog of ships anchored in Burrard Inlet. The ships were barely visible in the fog for tour attendees, delegates to the Canadian Crops Convention held here earlier […] Read more
News

‘Perfect storm’ hits grain movement

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The blockade of CN rail lines by Indigenous-rights protesters has contributed to “a perfect storm” affecting grain movement this winter, say Alberta Wheat and Alberta Barley. “An eight-day CN rail strike in late November, followed by a 10-day cold spell in January and heavy rains impacting rail movement and the loading of grain vessels at […] Read more

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