I was wondering how much or often Canadian Pacific and Canadian National still service Thunder Bay. The reason I ask is that a few years ago I heard the unions there were on strike so often the railways were forced to find other routes of getting their products to port facilities.
How many grain terminals are there in Thunder Bay to speak off? I think there was a facility for wood products too. Are there any other terminals in Thunder Bay?
Thanks for any information. Inquiring minds want to know.
As I recall, Tundra Bay has some pretty good sized grain shipping facilities, but I haven’t been up there for about five years now. (I started visiting in 1967 when it was still Port Arthur and Ft. William.) Last time I was there (2004 IIRC) it was pretty busy railroad-wise. Remember Thunder Bay is the largest Canadian city between Sault Ste. Marie and Winnipeg - about 700 miles or so. Not too many other alternatives.
I can’t give details, since I don’t know them with any precision, but the number of grain terminal elevators has been greatly reduced over the years. This is not due to any union action, merely natural changes in the grain business means that more grain flows through Vancouver. In the now distant past a large majority went to the Lakehead but when you are selling to China that is a long way around.
Export grain would be transshipped to lake boats at Thunder Bay for the trip through the St.Lawrence system, and then transshipped through yet another elevator before reaching an ocean going vessel. Winter would shut down the route for 3 months or so every year. Vancouver eliminates this multiple handling and can operate year round.
There are still quite a few grain trains to Thunder Bay of course. Some of them, mostly in winter, actually run through to an elevator in Quebec City where navigation is year round. Obviously you also will get the transcontinental freights on CPR running through. CN has abandoned their link east of Thunder Bay to Longlac so any through traffic will be on their main line well to the north.
Thunder Bay is not what it used to be, railroad wise anyway.
Through mergers, the number of grain elevators has shrunk vastly. And as John pointed out Vancouver is a much more attractive grain export point. Although Thunder Bay still sees the occasional export grain shipment.
Canadian National has all but forgot about Thunder Bay. At one point CN had two big yards, one in Port Arthur and the other in Fort William. Now the Port Arthur yard sits mostly empty with about 5 of it’s original yard tracks in use, mostly storing empty centerbeam cars since the downturn in the forest sector. Neebing Yard in Fort William is about a quarter of the size it once was in the heyday of the Lakehead.
With the closure of the Graham Sub that linked Thunder Bay to the CN Northern transcon line at Graham in the early 90s. And the closure of the Kinghorn Sub in 2005 has really isolated Thunder Bay from the rest of CN with the only route to Winnipeg running through Fort Frances.
Canadian Pacific still runs a large operation with four yards spread out across Thunder Bay. Daily trains include intermodal, grain and general mixed freight. As with CN, the downturn in the forest sector has hurt CP here. They still however run alot more trains then CN.