Reading Time: 6 minutes It could take months for grain movement to fully recover from the catastrophic flooding in B.C. that buried rail lines in mud and debris or washed away the ground under the tracks. And the unprecedented damage has highlighted the risk that Prairie farmers face in getting their grain to port. “The rail system there has […] Read more
B.C. floods put the spotlight on ‘vulnerable’ rail corridor
Transport sector needs to ‘learn our lessons’ after unprecedented number of washouts and slides
CN, CP railways break grain shipping records
MarketsFarm – It was a record-breaking year for both of Canada’s two major freight railways. In separate news releases to the public on August 3, both Canadian National Railway (CN Rail) and Canadian Pacific Railway (CP Rail) reported a record amount of grain moved during the 2020-21 crop year. For the first time ever, both […] Read more
A record 12 months of grain shipping for CN
Reading Time: < 1 minute CN Rail says it set another grain shipping record in February, the 12th consecutive month it has set a new record. The railway said it moved 2.28 million tonnes of Canadian grain and grain products in February, breaking the old mark of 2.12 million tonnes by seven per cent. Since the start of the crop […] Read more
Record-setting performance earns kudos for railways
Farm group offers its congratulations but says improved grain movement needs to ‘stay that way’
Reading Time: 2 minutes It’s something that would have seemed unimaginable even a few years ago — a major grain group issuing a news release just to praise the performance of the two big railways. “The Western Canadian Wheat Growers offers congratulations to both CN Rail and CP for the record volume of grain and grain products moved in […] Read more
Pulse Canada podcast focuses on grain transport
Reading Time: < 1 minute 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
Minister revises order on rail speed limits in cold weather
Higher-risk trains can back up other rail traffic; revised order eases some restrictions
Reading Time: 2 minutes 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
Will the gusher of grain movement continue?
Shipping records have shattered but the big test comes when the snow flies
Reading Time: 4 minutes 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
Railways say they’re more prepared than ever
Increased capital spending and better technology will improve performance, CN and CP both say
Reading Time: 3 minutes 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
Railways ‘blowing the doors off’ with grain movement
It could be a record year for movement but bottlenecks remain despite heavy investment
Reading Time: 4 minutes 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
The grain trains just keep getting bigger
Reading Time: < 1 minute 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