Stacked Shipping Containers

Could containers be the answer to the West’s grain shipping woes?

A containerized grain supply chain would enhance competition, says University of Manitoba economist

Reading Time: 5 minutes Ottawa has long been in the business of trying to fix the problem of transporting Prairie grain to the west coast by rail. Yet the issues don’t get solved. “None of the policies introduced by Raitt or Ritz did anything to deal with the surge,” University of Manitoba’s Barry Prentice says. “Worse, they have done […] Read more

Railway tracks in fog

Plenty of blame to go around for grain shipping debacle

A year into the great grain fiasco, it’s no longer only about the railways

Reading Time: 6 minutes UPDATED, June 21, 2015: The 2013 harvest should have been a time of wild celebration. Prairie farmers had produced a bin-busting crop with a record-smashing 76 million tonnes, and with good crop prices, the entire West should have struck up the music and started to dance. Instead, logistics turned the dream into a nightmare, and […] Read more


close-up of steel train wheels

The Journey: A quick history of shipping grain to port by rail

From Prairie farm to ocean port, our rail lines still shock the imagination with their engineering and bravado

Reading Time: 9 minutes It’s a trip that is so formidable, it weakened the knees of generations of politicians, entrepreneurs and engineers alike. Everybody could tell the northern Great Plains would be an ideal place for growing cereal crops, and they knew too that the world would love to eat what we grow, but getting those crops to port […] Read more

(CPR.ca)

U.S. soy shippers say rail service improved

Reading Time: < 1 minute The U.S. Soy Transportation Coalition (STC) says it’s pleased with recent improvements to rail service, and is giving especially high marks to Canadian Pacific Railway (CP). Last week, the STC and the University of Minnesota concluded the research project “2014 Harvest: Attaching a Garden Hose to a Fire Hydrant,” which was started due to U.S. […] Read more


(Dave Bedard photo)

Cost index trimmed for railways’ grain revenue cap

Reading Time: 2 minutes A sharper-than-expected drop in fuel costs has led federal regulators to dial back the index that decides how much money railways get to keep from hauling Prairie grain. The Canadian Transportation Agency on announced Thursday it will cut its volume-related composite price index (VRCPI) by 5.6 per cent, to 1.2517, for the 2015-16 crop year. […] Read more

(Dave Bedard photo)

Arbitrator named for CP talks with running trades

Reading Time: 2 minutes The federal government has named its arbitrator to settle a new contract between Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) and its conductors, engineers, trainmen and yardmen. Labour Minister Kellie Leitch on Monday appointed lawyer and professional mediator George Adams as the arbitrator and mediator for talks between CP and its 3,800 unionized running trades workers, represented by […] Read more


(Dave Bedard photo)

CN, CP book higher grain revenues in Q1

Reading Time: 2 minutes A bump in gross revenue from grain handling helped to improve first-quarter results for both of Canada’s big two railways. Canadian National Railway (CN) on Monday reported overall net income of $704 million on $3.098 billion in revenue for the quarter ending March 31, up from $623 million on $2.693 billion in the year-earlier period. […] Read more

Transport Minister Lisa Raitt and Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz, shown here in Winnipeg last March, won’t be extending mandatory minimum grain handles, which end Saturday. (Dave Bedard photo)

Railways’ mandatory minimum grain handles ending

Reading Time: 3 minutes Canada’s big two railways can resume moving grain at their own pace as the federal government’s order in council setting mandatory minimum grain traffic quotas is set to expire unrenewed. Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz and Transport Minister Lisa Raitt announced the federal government won’t renew the mandatory minimums, which are due to expire Saturday. The […] Read more


Transport Minister Lisa Raitt, shown here last month at Carleton University, says she doesn’t yet plan to mandate minimum grain traffic levels in specific rail corridors. (TC,gc.ca)

Raitt won’t tell railways where to ship grain for now

Reading Time: 2 minutes Ottawa | Reuters — The Canadian government will not, for now, start telling railways where to ship farmers’ grain but it will decide within days whether to extend its requirements on how much grain they must haul, Transport Minister Lisa Raitt said Wednesday. In an interview in her parliamentary office, Raitt said farmers and shippers […] Read more

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, shown here with Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) president Ray Orb in Saskatoon on Thursday, said Canada’s big two railways can’t be allowed to define “satisfactory” in terms of grain handling service. (PMO photo by Jill Thompson)

Railways can’t dictate terms on grain backlog, Harper says

Reading Time: < 1 minute Reuters — Canadian Pacific Railway and Canadian National Railway have such huge market power that they cannot be allowed to dictate how Canada’s grain shipment backlog is cleared, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Thursday. Harper said in an appearance in Saskatchewan that the grain backlog was not nearly as bad as it was a […] Read more