More to grain movement problems than winter weather says Peace Region farmer

A Woking farmer says recent problems with grain movement go beyond winter weather.
 
Leo Meyer thinks these issues are related to what he describes as a “track capacity issue.”
 
He says there has been traffic on railroads this winter, but it wasn’t grain.
 
“All the containers will now have to be moved. There is significantly more frack sand to be moved. I haven’t heard (the) oil industry complaining that they’re not getting frack sand. You make be noticing, in our area specifically, there’s a lot more of the smaller, they look like rail cars, but they’re frack sand cars.”
 
He thinks there needs to be discussion about having more railroad tracks.
 
“That, to me, would probably be a more fitting conversation to be had, (rather) than legislation and forcing somebody in the system we operate in to do certain things.”
 
Meyer adds other problems seems to be coordination and communication.
 
“I think we’re taking action whenever those things occur, like back in 2013, way too late. We should be talking much earlier. Industry should get together better when it comes to coordinating those movements and also, tracking possible sales and matching them with vessels arriving in Vancouver.”
 
Meyer also says recent improvements to the Panama Canal mean the biggest container ships can now haul close to 13,500 containers, where they could haul about 3500 before, and all those containers need to be moved to and from port by rail.