First of all, I should tell you that, by training, I'm a transportation economist. I love trains. I love roads. I love all modes of transport, so I have no particular bias, but each one has its benefits.
The merits of trains are for very high volumes and very long distances. For moving coal, grain, or potash, there's nothing that will compete with a train, and we should always use trains.
When you're looking at relatively low volumes and relatively short distances, the trains are a very expensive option. The track alone, the steel, is tremendously expensive to maintain. On a mainline track you have to replace 25 railway ties every year on average per mile. You have to replace the steel, you have to replace the ballast, and the train sets are expensive.
We simply do not have the volume of traffic to justify trains in the north. Even with a train such as the one going to Moosonee, one of its big problems is there's not enough volume of traffic to pay for the rail line, and it's the same with the one to Churchill. The railways have been abandoning the branch lines for the very same reason across the country and sticking to the mainlines. That's the principal reason why the trains don't serve.