Shortage of cars.... I think sometimes there is a terrible shortage of logistics. In conversations we've had with the railroads, they have said that putting more cars on the railroads may be like adding more cars to a freeway like the 401 in rush hour. Are you going to get anywhere faster?
Yes, we're not getting the cars on time. I believe the biggest factor missing is coordination within the policy. As we've heard in talk about the ports tonight, the railways bring cars in on Friday afternoon because they know the ports aren't going to work on the weekend, and then they say that the ports are congested.
The terminal elevator that I deliver to phoned me. I talked to them on Friday afternoon; they had said to phone on Friday. “Can you deliver on Monday?” I want to deliver next week. There's a call on Friday morning that all deliveries are off. The railway isn't spotting this week. Okay, so I had to change all my plans to go back. On Friday afternoon, they got a call from CN saying that they're going to have cars there Saturday morning.
Somehow we have to fix that spot of it. How do the shippers, how do the receivers...? We have to fix that side of it.
Is there a shortage of cars, a shortage of things in the middle? There may very well be; we'll find that out. I think the biggest most critical thing is to have the coordination there to say that when CN says it will have cars at the terminal, they arrive on time and they are taken on time.
CN will bring cars into this facility, but if there are fertilizer cars in the way, they just park the grain cars out on the line where they can't get to them. Then they have to wait for CN to come back and move the cars again. How do you load this 110-car spot?
This is a great part of the logistics within that system and of managing it. Those are the things that come back to haunt the system. Is there a shortage of cars and capacity? I think it's as much to do with the logistics. Manage those logistics.
Whether it comes down to service level agreements under which, if the railways say they're going to be there at four o'clock on Saturday afternoon and they're not there at four o'clock on Saturday afternoon.... The companies are bringing people in to load those cars. There's a 24-hour spot. There's a premium to load them in 24 hours. They want that premium. Every terminal I deal with will bring people in to load those cars. Do you want to be that guy who says, “Yes, I'll work the weekend”, “No I won't work the weekend”, “Yes, I'll work the weekend”?
Those are the issues that we have. We need logistics control.