This week’s bitter cold temperatures has led the railways to move into their winter schedule.
Mark Hemmes with Quorum Corporation, the Federal Government's grain monitor, says the extreme cold can impact the air brake systems, so as a precaution CN and CP starting running shorter trains.
“They've got a set of guidelines...it basically says that if it falls below minus 25, I think they cut by 15%. If it falls below minus 35, it's another 15%.”
While grain movement may slow down now, Hemmes says overall 2019 turned out to be a good year.
He says overall we moved more grain than we’ve ever moved before which set some new records.
“Primary elevator throughput was up 7.3% a record at 48.8 million metric tonnes. Rail movement was up 4.8% to set a new record at 54.3 million metric tonnes and Western port shipments were up 6.4% a record at 37.1 million metric tonnes.”
Hemmes thinks last year’s record volume leads to hope for more improvement; more cars equals more capacity, noting that a reduction in car cycle would improve that.
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