Feds, province would consider assisting rail work
There’s no proposal on the table at this point, but at least two elected officials in Cape Breton say the province and Ottawa would likely consider any reasonable proposal to support the rehabilitation of the island’s railway.
Both Cape Breton-Canso MP Rodger Cuzner and Glace Bay MLA Geoff MacLellan said Friday they are aware of the findings of a report prepared for the Port of Sydney Development Corp. by the consultant HATCH which pegged the cost of bringing Cape Breton’s shortline railway up to a standard to support the transport of double-stacked containers at about $103 million.
Rail is considered an essential component of any potential container terminal development at the port of Sydney.
“I haven’t read the entire report but I’ve read the executive summary and by all accounts it’s pretty close to where the railway has to be in order to provide that service,” Cuzner said.
Should a proposal come forward and the province identify it as an infrastructure priority, Ottawa’s role would be as “sort of third man in as a funding partner,” he noted.
“Certainly, if the container terminal does go forward it would be an essential part of that,” Cuzner said. “As a federal government, our role would be to support the Province of Nova Scotia. The port development piece in itself, that won’t be driven by any government, that’s got to be private investment that goes ahead on its own merit. I believe there is a role to play for governments in the support with infrastructure and the rail line would be such a piece of infrastructure.”
MacLellan is currently Minister of Business and is a former Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal. While in his former portfolio, MacLellan introduced legislation to prevent the tearing up of the railway by
owners Genesee & Wyoming. The HATCH study did note the limited ability of a small railway company to manage the scope of the work that would be required to bring the railway first up to a Class 1 standard and eventually to Class 3.
“We’ve always been aware of the fact that rail was important for a port to have any validity and any potential whatsoever,” MacLellan said. “We haven’t had any formal requests with regard to the infrastructure. This is a private sector operation so as they’re developing the business plan, looking at what’s got to be done at the port, what’s got to be done with the rail, attracting the investors to build it, attracting the shippers to keep the market flowing and actually have the business on the ground … like everything else, when an infrastructure request is made, we’ll consider it.”
MacLellan added the McNeil Liberal government’s position has always been that it will not operate a rail line and it also can’t rebuild one.