Milk prices rise as Omnitrax, Canada spar on who will pay to reconnect the railroad to a Manitoba town
http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2017/07/26-churchill-man
Hard to justify 20 megabucks or more to repair a 2-train-a-week railroad. I didn’t check how much freight moves, but the territory isn’t exactly rife with traffic zources
Maybe it’s time to go to a rubber wheel solution.
Chuck
Going to a “rubber wheel solution” will be far more expensive since road construction (there are no roads at all anywhere close to the problem area) will be extremely challenging. Maintaining a road will continue to be just as difficult as maintaining the rail line. Serving remote areas will always be costly; the railway itself has never been more than marginal for some 80-90 years but survived because it keeps the full costs of the supply chain as low as possible.
Unfortunately there aren’t too many other options and road isn’t one of them. Nearest road is Lynn Lake IIRC many miles away. Any road construction through that area would be much more expensive than $20M. The Inuvik Tuktoyaktuk Hwy is just being finished and it has cost about $190M to build. Problems are primarily muskeg and permafrost consditions which really complicate things.
The only other option other than air is a sealift to Churchill. These can originate in Montreal (probably will now as lifts are time sensitive) and are a common source of supply of food, consumer items, building materials and fuel for the Arctic coast communities. Churchill however is also a starting point for these lifts and I expect that the HBR hauled a lot of the freight destined for those lifts.
The railway has served a need for many years. Granted it’s not a large volume of freight and I’m thinking Omnitrax hasn’t always been the best of operators but in fairness to them, it’s a very challenging environment in which to maintain a railway. I believe that’s a large part of the reason CN got rid of it.
The view from here.
Charlie
My question is where will this leave the Village of Churchill? Is it not, due to the costs of transporting grain for export there, more of a liability on the part of the railroad and the Canadian government.
Sure, this is a once in a lifetime disaster as it relates to the railroad and I wont fault Omni Trax for not wanting to foot the bill for repairs to the line. It is my opinion the costs of doing so might bankrupt them given there seems to be no government support. Due to the terrain a road would be a very costly option and once completed would not likely benefit the residents due to the transportation costs of essentials such as food, heating oil, etc.
Still, the refusal of the Canadian government to pay for rehabilitation of the line places the residents of Churchill between a rock and a hard place. Are they expected to depend on air service that increases the price of food and other necessities beyond the pale? If so, the demise of the town is imminent. Churchill has never been a mojor factor in grain exports. Polar Bear tourism has been their mainstay for many years. Take away the railroad and it’s likely that tourism will also disappear, and if it does Churchill will become nothing more than history.
Norm
Between a rock and a hard place I think. Will it be the end. I honestly don’t know.
We’ll see. Sometimes it’s a game of politics on the part of the GC. GC may be trying to get Omintrax to pony up some of the cost and then they’ll kick in. I believe the GC has put money in before. It’s has happened in my recollection although not recently. Maybe Omintrax is trying to offload HBR and this is one way of them trying to up the ante for GC.
Interesting thing is that Omintrax also runs the Port of Churchill. Two years ago they weren’t seeking the grain contracts necessary to run the ra
Four score and seven years ago
https://archive.org/stream/annualdept4s192930cana#page/n903/mode/2up
A BBC report on First Nations efforts to buy the line: http://www.bbc.com/travel/gallery/20170726-the-people-who-want-to-buy-a-railroad
Heated up the link. [:^)]
http://www.bbc.com/travel/gallery/20170726-the-people-who-want-to-buy-a-railroad
On the face of it, the ‘First Nations’ buying the ROW, and then operating the vital link for transport and communication would seem to be a no brainer? A 1700 Km line is a pretty big investment; but possibly, the Canadian ( or Provincial govts) could work out so kind of a deal. Apparently, the land (muskeg and swamps?) is not conducive to road construction. So the railroad, already in place, is the best alternative. Possibly, the harbor and facilities at Churchill could be a possibility for development?
[quote user=“lenzfamily”]
Norm48327
My question is where will this leave the Village of Churchill? Is it not, due to the costs of transporting grain for export there, more of a liability on the part of the railroad and the Canadian government.
Sure, this is a once in a lifetime disaster as it relates to the railroad and I wont fault Omni Trax for not wanting to foot the bill for repairs to the line. It is my opinion the costs of doing so might bankrupt them given there seems to be no government support. Due to the terrain a road would be a very costly option and once completed would not likely benefit the residents due to the transportation costs of essentials such as food, heating oil, etc.
Still, the refusal of the Canadian government to pay for rehabilitation of the line places the residents of Churchill between a rock and a hard place. Are they expected to depend on air service that increases the price of food and other necessities beyond the pale? If so, the demise of the town is imminent. Churchill has never been a mojor factor in grain exports. Polar Bear tourism has been their mainstay for many years. Take away the railroad and it’s likely that tourism will also disappear, and if it does Churchill will become nothing more than history.
Norm
Between a rock and a hard place I think. Will it be the end. I honestly don’t know.
We’ll see. Sometimes it’s a game of politics on the part of the GC. GC may be trying to get Omintrax to pony up some of the cost and then they’ll kick in. I believe the GC has put money in before. It’s has happened in my recollection although not recently. Maybe Omintrax is trying t
[quote user=“Norm48327”]
lenzfamily
Norm48327
My question is where will this leave the Village of Churchill? Is it not, due to the costs of transporting grain for export there, more of a liability on the part of the railroad and the Canadian government.
Sure, this is a once in a lifetime disaster as it relates to the railroad and I wont fault Omni Trax for not wanting to foot the bill for repairs to the line. It is my opinion the costs of doing so might bankrupt them given there seems to be no government support. Due to the terrain a road would be a very costly option and once completed would not likely benefit the residents due to the transportation costs of essentials such as food, heating oil, etc.
Still, the refusal of the Canadian government to pay for rehabilitation of the line places the residents of Churchill between a rock and a hard place. Are they expected to depend on air service that increases the price of food and other necessities beyond the pale? If so, the demise of the town is imminent. Churchill has never been a mojor factor in grain exports. Polar Bear tourism has been their mainstay for many years. Take away the railroad and it’s likely that tourism will also disappear, and if it does Churchill will become nothing more than history.
Norm
Between a rock and a hard place I think. Will it be the end. I honestly don’t know.
We’ll see. Sometimes it’s a game of politics on the part of the GC. GC may be trying to get Omintrax to pony up some of the cost and then
I will not accept that all of that was in vain.
Thank you Wanswheel for reposting this.
I will not say that the establishment of Churchill was in vain but its economic reason for being seems to have passed. This line was the last line in North America that handled grain in boxcars since it was too light to handle anything else and a line that was built for shipping grain will not last if it can’t handle 286K covered hoppers.
Chicago Tribune, June 27, 1965
http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1965/06/27/page/152
Manitoba’s Port of Churchill a Blend of Old, New
Hudson Bay Post Dates Back Centuries
[Last in a series of articles on Manitoba, Canada’s Keystone province.]
By Alfred Borcover
Assistant Travel Editor
CHURCHILL, Man.—This inland port on Hudson Bay, a sub-Arctic frontier town, is a curious blend of old and new that ranges from the ruins of Fort Prince of Wales to huge grain elevators and a rocket research center.
Churchill is also a blend of cultures—Canadians, Eskimos, Chippewayan Indians, and metis [half- breeds]. During the summer you can add to Churchill’s population a variety of tourists, and merchant seamen whose ocean-going freighters come here to take on cargoes of grain from Canada’s prairie provinces.
The town, with a population of abo
I have not yet read the entire account; when I came to this statement–“In 1685 Capt. John Abraham of the Hudson’s Bay Company, based at Port Nelson to the south, made an exploration voyage to the mouth of the Churchill River, apparently the first European to visit it since Munck. Abraham named the river after Lord John Churchill, who became the first Duke of Marlborough, and later King James II.” I began to wonder how much history of England the writer knows. King James II abdicated the throne of England in 1688 after Parliament more or less told him he was not wanted, and invited James’ son-in-law to be king. His daughter Anne, who became Queen after her brother-in-law’s death created John Churchill Duke of Marlborough.
Johnny, thanks, I didn’t even suspect John Churchill wasn’t king material.
First: Thanks, to Mike (wanswheel) for some fascinating links! Lots of reading, on an area so far away.
The link I found to be of interest was “Wonders of the World Engineering” [ The Road to Hudson Bay]
linked @ http://wondersofworldengineering.com/hudson_bay.html
Specifically, at the sub titled section:
Valuable Metal Discoveries### ### "…RICH mineral deposits have been found adjacent to the track of the railway, and branch lines have been built to them. One runs to the copper mines at Flin Flon and Mandy and another to the Sheritt-Gordon Mines on Cold Lake. The Flin Flon and Sheritt-Gordon Mines have been shown, by the exploratory work already done, to have millions of tons of ore, carrying copper, zinc, gold an
Hi All
Found this. Current as of mid June. Helpful context.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/omnitrax-damage-inspections-1.4163026
Not sure how one activates the link.
Charlie