By Alice McFarlane

A good start to the shipping season for the Port of Thunder Bay

Apr 15, 2021 | 3:42 PM

MELFORT, Sask. – The shipping season has been underway for a few weeks at the Port of Thunder Bay and it appears to be off to a good start.

Milt Poirier with QGI Consulting produces the weekly monitoring report for the Ag Transport Coalition (ATC).

Speaking to the Grain by Train podcast produced by Pulse Canada, Poirier said the good numbers have buoyed hopes of matching last year’s 9.2 million metric tonnes of grain shipped. He said traffic has ramped up quickly.

“We look at cars online and they’re up to 2,000 cars,” Poirier said. “Between CN and CP, a lot of the volume is driven by CP, but they’re traditionally the stronger player in that corridor.”

Given the numbers and how quickly rail cars have arrived at Thunder Bay, Poirier said demand in that corridor is looking a lot like it did last year.

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“Last year was one of the best years they’d had in a number of years,” Poirier said.

As for overall grain movement, Poirier said CP Rail did very well during shipping week 35 from March 28 to April 3.

“Their car spotting capacity has been really good the last four or five weeks. They’ve spotted more than 5,000 cars for four straight weeks now which is an excellent achievement,” he said.

It was a different story for CN Rail. Prior to week 35 the rail company was showing signs it was getting ready for a good run. CN took a step back and only managed to spot less than 3,500 cars. Poirier said it was the worst car spotting performance for ATC shippers in six weeks.

“It’s puzzling how they can spot 4,000 cars one week and then 4,200 the next and then drop to 3,500. It’s difficult to make sense of it. Somewhere in there, there is something not going right in the capacity equation for them that they’re able to sustain week in and week out,” he said.

The Ag Transport Coalition members include the Alberta Wheat Commission, the Canadian Canola Growers Association, the Canadian Oilseed Processors Association, the Inland Terminal Association of Canada, the Manitoba Pulse & Soybean Growers, Pulse Canada, and the Western Grain Elevator Association.

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alice.mcfarlane@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @farmnewsNOW