Via spent $600,000 to ship Churchill rail cars

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This article was published 03/07/2018 (2970 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

OTTAWA — Via Rail spent more than $600,000 to ship its abandoned rail cars south from Churchill last fall, an internal report obtained through access-to-information laws shows.

The Crown corporation spent $607,089.39 on logistics, travel and contractors to bring its two locomotives and five rail cars last October, though Via Rail says it would’ve cost almost double to repair the train if it was left to rust over the winter.

The train left the Port of Churchill on the MV Nunalik, after that boat offloaded 2.2 million litres of propane the provincial government sent in order to help Churchill residents the survive winter. The cost of the shipping and the propane totalled $6 million.

Via Rail said it could not respond to a Friday afternoon request to explain how it estimated the cost of leaving the train in Churchill through the winter.

“If those locomotives and cars had stayed in Churchill during the entire winter, it would have cost approximately one (1) million dollars to fix and bring back to life these pieces of equipment that would have been damaged by sustained harsh winter temperatures,” reads Via Rail’s response to a Free Press access-to-information request.

Records show Via Rail paid the shipping company NEAS $325,769.07 to use the boat, which may have been cost-shared with the province. The Manitoba government would not confirm this, citing the limitations on media outreach until the St. Boniface provincial by-election on July 17.

A new shipment of propane is slated to arrive in mid-July; the town is running low on fuel and officials ordered an emergency rationing last Friday. But it’s unclear whether the province will have to pay more for this month’s shipment than the one last fall — the province did not say if it would be cost-sharing with another firm seeking to move items out of Churchill.

The Via Rail train arrived in the town shortly before the Hudson Bay Railway’s May 23, 2017 washout turned Churchill into a fly-in community.

Residents had mulled a blockade to prevent Via from removing what was seen as the town’s last remaining federal asset, but ultimately gathered in a peaceful send-off. One of the rail cars was festooned with a celebratory Canada 150 banner.

Since November, Via Rail has reduced but continued service along the railway to Gillam, near the washout site.

Removing the Via Rail train is one of many costs borne by taxpayers as a result of Churchill’s months-long rail disruption.

In 2017, federal and provincial governments spent a combined $400,256.11 to subsidize food flown to Churchill last year.

In May, Churchill Mayor Mike Spence expressed concern at the snowballing costs to taxpayers, saying his town wants to once again be an economic asset instead of a burden. “We can’t allow this to continue to drag on, indefinitely,” he said.

Today, Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr will visit the town for a symposium with coastguard officials on Ottawa’s nascent Arctic strategy. It’s also the July 3 deadline the Canadian Transportation Agency ordered Omnitrax’s subsidiary to start repairs to the line. The federal government pledged May 30 to restore rail service “before winter 2018.”

Sources familiar with the takeover talks say they’re expecting a major announcement on Tuesday, and that some of the parties with financial backing are considering walking away from the talks entirely if there isn’t a clear timeline for the repairs.

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|Churchill rail costs

 

dylan.robertson@freepress.mb.ca