CN's weekly grain movement report for Week 37 shows 551 thousand metric tonnes of grain and processed grain products were moved.
That number is on par with average levels but under CN's target guidance of 744 thousand metric tonnes mainly due to lower net customer demand.
CN's Assistant Vice President David Przednowek says with spring weight restrictions coming on, we're getting deeper into the crop year with less grain left to move.
"That's having an impact on demand and we expect that trend to continue. As of right now, we've got a lot of equipment parked because there's just simply not enough demand to have it rolling. So we've got our assets sized to demand."
He adds that with the recent spring snow storms, significant snowfall in some areas has meant road conditions haven't been ideal for grain deliveries or for getting rail crews around.
Przednowek talked about some of the fluidity issues within the supply chain over the last couple of weeks.
"In Week 37, we had an outage at one particular terminal on the North Shore that reduced unload capacity. We also completed recovery from the mainline disruption on the CN Wainwright subdivision that occurred in grain shipping week 36. That resulted in an impact of both eastbound and westbound train movement on the Wainwright (just east of Edmonton) but we've recovered from that."
He notes CN is still very consistently supplying 90 to 100 per cent of the cars requested by customers either within the want week requested or within a couple of days.
To hear more of Glenda-Lee's conversation with CN's Assistant Vice President David Przednowek click on the link below.