Increased Production And Shortage Of Rail Cars Causing Bottle Neck At Canfor
Monday, April 15, 2013 @ 4:27 AM
Prince George- The Vice President of Brands and External Relations for Canfor, Christine Kennedy says tents are being constructed on the Intercon pulp mill property to store pulp .
The tents, which Canfor hopes will be short term, come as result of two things according to Kennedy,
1. a lack of CN cars to move the product and
2. production that is up at the mills.
Canfor has been doing really well in production and that production is away up according to the VP.
The second issue is that CN has had some problems such as slides and winter problems which has contributed to the problem along with increased demand for the cars from increased production across the board in western Canada. For example she sites , MDF production is way up and they are looking for more cars.
"Our people are talking to CN every day with a view to getting the bottle neck corrected" says Kennedy.
Comments
Its a big problem in a major hub like PG. Its a huge issue for a small town like Ft St John. Our OSB mill makes a lot of panels a shift and the warehouse fills up quickly. Like pulp, we don’t want to store our stuff outside for too long. Lets hope CN can get more cars in the loop soon.
Lets create a new railrosd, we can call it BC Rail.
Lets create a new railroad, we can call it BC Rail.
Whoops
lets just ask Christy if she can give it back…
CN is horrible, unreliable switch times, bringing in the wrong cars, etc. then they want to charge for a second switch to fix the problem they caused.
I remember watching the hearings when BC Rail was being sold. Canfor brass was asking for competition for BC Rail. Within a year of the transaction they were whining about storing inventory due to crappy service, lack of cars etc.
They asked for the sale of BC Rail and got the monopoly that is CN. Don’t feel much pity for them.
CN Rail has boasted about its great service and their ability to move traffic etc;, however it was all based on a slumping economy. Things have been in the toilet since 2007/2008, and the economy is just starting to turn around.
Once the US Market picks up for lumber, pulp and paper, and osb you run into car shortages and service problems. This is the time you can judge a railways ability to be efficient and service its customers needs.
With shortage of rail cars, and trained employee’s I expect that CN will fall flat on its face in the service department for at least the next year.
Their purchase of BC Rail gives them a monopoly situation so they can get by with providing poor service because there is no alternative.
Man that tent is huge. It must hold soooooo much pulp!
Tents? Full of pulp? When they are empty our homeless problem can disappear for a while.
I Know firsthand what a bad service CN has been giving the mills since BC rail was sold. We were told prior to the sale that service would get better that is a joke. We are forever storing Paper and pulp on the floor due to lack of service from CN rail. When you have a monopoly on the market it can only lead to bad service, because they don’t care. Much like are government that sold BC rail, they just don’t care.
Lets not forget that prior to the shut down of industry in Mackenzie they to had to store their pulp in huge tents until they ran out of room for storage tents and the headquarters down in the states decided to close the whole operation because of huge build up of inventory they could not ship to market.
Lets not forget that Pat Bell was the biggest story telling cheer leader for the BC Rail privatization and sale to CN… and Christy Clarks husband was the deal maker behind the scenes.
Lets not forget that the BC liberals paid the legal bills of the criminals that were making a living selling rights to inside information on the privatization of BC Rail… rather than have it go to court where the truth could come out.
BC liberals are monopoly capitalists and the BC Rail sale is part of their monopoly capitalist legacy. Our industry now pays the price… no new manufacturing will come about as a result.
IMO the BC Rail scandal should go to a public inquiry and when the wrong doing is identified the deal should become void. Its to late to rebuild BC Rail, but it is not to late to make BC an open port for all rail service providers with the track infrastructure maintained by a crown agency that bills rights of access to the other rail carriers.
I will vote for any candidate that says we should have an inquiry into BCR scandal.
Comments for this article are closed.