SASKATOON, Sask. — A Saskatchewan specialty crop processor fed up with its service from Canadian National Railway is asking a Canadian Transportation Agency tribunal in Saskatoon to allow another railway to carry its peas, lentils and seed to port, the National Post reports.
The request from Naber Seed and Grain Co. Ltd., is the first of its kind to the CTA since the federal government changed the Canadian Transportation Act to allow other railways to take over service when CN Rail is shown to have not delivered on its service level obligations.
In two complaints, Naber Seed alleges that the railway failed to fulfill its common carrier obligations by refusing to provide the ordered number of railway hopper cars during an 11-week period and then a 20-week period over the 2000-2001 crop year.
Although CN Rail says it lived up to its end of the agreement, a senior Naber Seeds official told the tribunal yesterday that the railway delivered the requested rail cars only 64% of the time in the last 20 week period between Nov. 26, 2000, and April 22, 2001.