The Polar Vortex shouldn’t be the foundation of Canadian railway policy

Last winter caused widespread disruption in freight supply chains across Canada, and railways were certainly not immune; the service they were able to provide during weeks of exceptionally cold weather fell well short of many customers’ requirements.

Critics were quick to suggest that railways were poor planners focused on cutting costs at the expense of service, and that they simply didn’t care about their customers. Railways were also accused of underinvesting and of lacking the capacity to handle large volumes of traffic. Last March, the federal government introduced its Fair Rail for Grain Farmers Act, and CN and CP must now move a minimum tonnage of grain per week, or face hefty fines.

However, a study that I recently conducted for Canada’s railways, and presented to a number of audiences across the country, shows that the railway industry was at the mercy of a very difficult weather pattern that wrought havoc on their basic technologies for weeks on end.

While all “outdoor” industries – especially those involved in transportation and logistics – suffer during the winter, railways are uniquely affected. The same technologies that make railways highly efficient, low-cost service providers – steel wheels running on steel rails, and harmonized air brake systems that allow cars and entire trains to move seamlessly across the North American rail network – are affected by a cold-weather tipping point, at about -25 Celsius.

Steel becomes less ductile, making rails more susceptible to breakage, and wheels more prone to tread damage. Air brake systems are challenged as well: air leaks at gaskets and elsewhere, causing braking systems to lose pressure, requiring railways to run much shorter trains for safety reasons.

These and a host of other factors can result in a downward spiral of delays. And, of course, winter’s effects on other members of the supply chain can “blow back” onto rail carriers, reducing their performance even further. An export terminal, for example, may stop inbound rail deliveries because of a winter storm at sea, backing up trains already en route, causing congestion and reducing the supply of empty equipment for inland shippers.

But in spite of the many challenges posed by the 2013-2014 winter, Canada’s railways weren’t resting on their laurels, as some critics have suggested. Even in the depths of the winter, they moved more traffic than they did during the summer of 2011 – illustrating that capacity investments in infrastructure, equipment, and people have been ongoing, and in-line with the demands of the economy.

All of this points to the fact that the issue with winter is not “capacity”. Rather, it is “resiliency” – the ability of railways to withstand the shocks brought on by a very harsh winter, given the technologies that make railways, railways. Canada’s railways make huge invest- ments to ensure that they are as resilient as possible; CN and CP each invest more than a billion dollars annually to renew infrastructure, support service improvements, and to develop technologies to offset some of winter’s negative effects.

But key opportunities for reducing winter backlogs also lie within the supply chain itself. Some of these include joint planning; improved forecasting; shared-access systems for real-time information; shared performance metrics to drive accountability and action; and other logistics initiatives such as increased storage capacity, product movement in advance of severe weather, and the development of multiple export corridors.

Ultimately, the notions that railways are under- investing, that they are not planning properly for winter, or that they are only focused on cost savings, are simply not based on fact. Furthermore, it simply isn’t reasonable to judge service, or to contemplate policy or regulatory action, based on railway performance during the worst eight to 10 weeks of winter weather last year. As the mercury dips in early 2015, Canada’s railways can only hope that all parties focus on the facts, not rhetoric, and on working together to improve service and efficiency across the supply chain.

Paul Miller is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of Alberta, and Railroader in Residence at the Canadian Rail Research Laboratory.