By Tara de Ryk

DAVIDSON—It’s a hurry up and wait situation when it comes to moving grain this winter.

As soon as grain railcars arrive at local grain handing terminals, they’re quickly filled, freeing up space in the terminal so farmers can haul in more grain.

One hundred railcars arrived at the Cargill grain terminal in Davidson the evening of Saturday, March 17.

Facility manager Mike Hoehn said when the cars arrived, they brought in a crew Sunday to load them. The five workers started at 6 a.m. and were finished loading 17 cars of durum and 83 cars of canola by 4:30 p.m., in time to return home for Sunday dinner.

Hoehn said this freed up more space in the terminal, with the 100 cars holding about one-third of the elevator’s capacity. A Canadian National Railways (CN) train moved the cars out of Davidson around mid-day Tuesday. Hoehn said they expected to receive another 100 cars on the weekend.

He expected a line of grain trucks at the terminal Tuesday morning.

“As soon as we make space, everybody wants to haul,” he said.

At Gardiner Dam Terminal (GDT) at Strongfield, which is on the Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) line, grain movement has been challenging, however, grain has been moving. The terminal hasn’t been sitting with empty bins this winter.

Last Week the terminal loaded a train with a string of 112 railcars that was about three weeks late, said Randy Haugen, marketing and logistics manager at GDT.

“We think it’s challenging, but knock on wood, it’s not doom and gloom,” he said of the situation in this area compared to other parts of Western Canada that haven’t been receiving trains.

He expected another train to arrive Monday or early this week and is hoping to have a train every week for the next month.

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