Thank you.
The only one I can speak to with experience, after operating a short line, is level of service. We have seen in the past in Saskatchewan that if branch lines were under CP or CN rule, regardless of which one, and a producer car loading site on one of those lines ordered cars, the class one railways would say, “We won't bring them to you because it costs us too much to get them there. We won't get them to you unless we come down that train run with 100 cars, or 50 cars”.
When they become short lines we can do it a lot cheaper, and we can do 10 cars, five cars, or 25 cars. That's about the only argument I can give as to why you would see a spike and an increase in it. We're seeing more short lines in Saskatchewan, therefore we're seeing more producer cars because of level of service. We can deliver it, and that would be the only thing.
If the federal government could address level of service and make sure it was addressed, that would be a huge plus for the farmers and the grain producers in Saskatchewan and western Canada.