Agriculture committee  You're talking sort of general statements, so without specifics it's a little bit tough to address. One key issue I'd like to talk about, though, is the demand on a consistent basis. For example, at the ports, relative to the terminals that we serve, 2,000 unloads a week is pret

Agriculture committee  Especially when they are much more limited than what we have in our various networks.

Agriculture committee  That's a good question. We go through fleet-sizing exercises on a continuous basis. We do a multi-year plan. We work with our commercial people in terms of what the demand is. We work with the operations people on what the cycles are going to be, and then we come up with a plan.

Agriculture committee  If demand were constant, and if we were successful in negotiating an agreement whereby we can use higher-capacity cars, there would be fewer cars needed to move the tonnage.

Agriculture committee  We have 6,300 federal government cars.

Agriculture committee  Our cars--this is just a purchase over and above what we have right now.

Agriculture committee  They're coming off the line right now. I was down there this week; I saw the 271st to the 280th cars were on the line.

Agriculture committee  Sure. This is a key point you raise. From our point of view, we think the system would be better by using the best cars and the best application, the cars that are best suited to the application. So how does that happen? Those are the details we're going to have to try to negot

Agriculture committee  That's the other thing. I was going to talk to you later because we didn't have time to get into it, but if I have a few minutes.... What the Saskatchewan Grain Car Corporation has done is to broaden the use of the car and to make the asset that they have a little more valuable.

Agriculture committee  That's right. An equivalent capacity guarantee would be a key provision, a key guarantee, and you would have Transport Canada there to monitor and record that and make sure that we adhere to the responsibilities and accountabilities that we undertook.

Agriculture committee  We're running a fleet of between 25,000 and 26,000 covered hoppers. This is not just moving grain. This is moving potash, fertilizer, sand...all the different types of cars. You want the breakdown on how they're--

Agriculture committee  The grain business is very important to us also; it's not just important to the farmers. It's roughly 20% of our business, so it's in our best interest to make sure our customers are competitive. If they're not competitive they're not going to ship any grain. We work with this

Agriculture committee  That depends on where you're coming from. If you're talking about Saskatchewan to Vancouver, maybe it will range from $25 to $30, depending on whether you are moving trainloads in big multi-car blocks or in smaller lots.

Agriculture committee  Right. That will be part of the discussion with Transport Canada. It's a key issue. The current cars are only 4,550 cubic feet in capacity, so relative to the cubic density of Canadian grain, you are going to cube out before you weigh out, before you can get to 286 with the curre

Agriculture committee  It's 286, right? What they are looking at is longer-term use of their cars. Their cars still have another 15 to 17 years of life.