25 years ago, several small farming communities in Southwest Saskatchewan joined together to keep their communities connected – by purchasing rail lines.
Those rail lines, now operated by Great Western Railway, continue to be essential to farmers across the Southwest for selling and transporting their grain.
Andrew Glasstetter, general manager of Great Western Railway, explained the unique history of these rail lines. He said, “Great Western Railway started off in 2000 because of a CP Rail planned abandonment of network track in Southwestern Saskatchewan. In 2000, the company that bought it started tearing up the tracks. So, in 2004, a group of over 400 farmers, producers, and local communities all got together as shareholders and bought the railway to make sure they could keep the line in place.”
Today, Great Western Railway operates on a total of 450 miles of track, of which they own 370 miles. This includes the previous Great Western Railway line, the Fife Lake Railway (purchased in 2017), and the Redcoat Road and Rail which GWR operates under a contract agreement.
Glasstetter said, “The Redcoat Road and Rail line runs East from Assiniboia to Pangman. The rest of our 370-mile network operates from Assiniboia, south to Coronach. We operate all the way west through Shaunavon around to Eastend and Consul, and it curves back around towards Frontier and Bracken. We serve as far north as Vanguard and Neville.”
In the later half of the 1900s, branch-line rail was a reliable way for farmers to transport their grain to larger centres. But, as those railways and grain elevators were abandoned or demolished, producers had to rely more and more on long haul trucking.
Thankfully, with Great Western Railway, short line rail is beginning to thrive again as more and more producers benefit from its operation.
Glasstetter said, “Our core business is shipping grain either to the United States or overseas through the Port of Vancouver or Port of Thunder Bay. We also bring inbound freight such as fertilizer, a little bit of frac sand, some feed, and we’ve been bringing in some corn over the last few years, increasingly so.”
After finding much success with this, Great Western Railway expanded its operations with Great Western Commodities. Business Development Manager, Jennifer Norheim, helps connect producers and buyers to facilitate beneficial long-term arrangements.
“We will buy and sell grain through Great Western Commodities as well,” said Glasstetter. “We’ll buy directly from our local producers and sell to interested buyers throughout North America. We also make sure to pay our producers as quickly as we can, so they’re not waiting for days or weeks or months. And our grain pricing is pretty competitive.”
Great Western Railway strives to make the market as accessible as possible to local producers; one of the main ways they accomplish this is by offering tailored services to their clients. “Whatever they need, we’re there for them,” said Glasstetter.
He continued, “We have our own railway car fleet of 260 grain hopper cars, so if car availability is short, we can provide our own. Plus, we don't charge any extra money for using our own cars, even if it takes a producer a couple extra days to load the cars. And we can offer all varieties of services, either the smaller, more boutique style services or larger kind of bulk services. Overall, we're going to be able to save them money and time by not having to truck their product all the way up to the main line.”
Other services include railcar storage for other companies, transload services, and an official grading facility newly opened in Shaunavon.
Glasstetter is also dedicated to consistently improving and “over-maintaining” his operations.
“We just completed a little over a 3-million-dollar infrastructure project just five miles west of Assiniboia,” he said. “We increased the railyard capacity by 200 railcar spots, which helps with any bottlenecks or congestion to just keep things moving more fluidly. We have high standards when it comes to track safety and infrastructure, so a very high percentage of our revenue goes back into our operations.”
If you’re looking to streamline your operations on the farm, get in touch with Great Western Railway or Great Western Commodities and see what they can do for you.
Great Western Railway: www.GreatWesternRail.com
Great Western Commodities: www.GWCommodities.com