(The following article by Murray Lyons was posted on the StarPhoenix website on August 3.)
SASKATOON — Biggar’s long history as a major railway town is in jeopardy as CN Rail has started a six-month process that could relocate 200 train crew employees to Saskatoon.
CN claims only about 40 per cent of the locomotive engineers and conductors now based in Biggar actually live there, but town officials say they have been winning back CN employees to the community in recent years and question whether there will be savings.
CN spokesperson Jim Feeney says the company in July gave the two unions representing the train crews the required notice of the move.
“By giving six-months notice as part of the collective agreement, it kicks off a period of consultation with the union,” he said. “It also gives CN time to also work through the numbers to make sure it is the optimum position both operationally and financially.”
Mayor Ray Sadler says he has been working with the unions and other politicians since word of the move spread out of the CN bunkhouse on July 13 to convince CN the economics are all wrong in abandoning CN’s crew bunkhouse in Biggar.
He says CN has to look at more than the bottom line, adding CN owes something to the railway towns that have helped the company prosper and make big profits as a privatized company in the past decade.
“Now is the time to look at the human side of the railway,” he said. “We’re proud of our railway, but right now we’re also a little confused by this move, so we’re both confused and proud.”
The bunkhouse provides crews a sleeping and eating area for the required amount of hours of down time before crews based in Melville or Edmonton can take a train back along the line to their home bases.
Feeney says improvements CN has made to its main line through the Prairies — mostly adding more sidings to allow trains to pass each other — have now made it possible to stay within the railway’s current 12-hour maximum running rules for its crews and make the crew changes in Saskatoon versus Biggar. He says it’s only another 40 miles (70 kilometres) to take an eastbound train to Saskatoon instead of stopping in Biggar.
“In the past few years, we’ve invested heavily in building sidings, which has increased the overall velocity of our trains,” Feeney added. “That means less time to cover more mileage.”
Biggar’s mayor says it may be true that only about 60 of the 190 people affected make their homes in Biggar, but that number is huge for a town of 2,300 people.
“If their homes are each worth $100,000, that’s a lot of money going to disappear out of the community in taxes and spending,” Sadler said.
Feeney says nothing in the CN proposal would prevent people from still residing in Biggar and commuting to Saskatoon and that there will still be track maintenance employees based in Biggar.
“CN doesn’t tell employees where to live,” he said Tuesday.
However, Biggar area Realtor Tim Hammond says the CN announcement has undone about two years of success he was having in convincing CN workers to buy homes in Biggar instead of commuting from Saskatoon.
“In the last two years, we’ve been able to move in four families,” he said. “Our pitch was that you could either get 40 per cent more home for the same money as in Saskatoon or the same home for 40 per cent less.”