Barrie Collingwood Railway (BCRY)

[2transpo]

It's also interesting to see that they will be able to make hundreds of thousands of dollars from the billboards. That will cut into the deficit.

I also heard that they have been trainsloading recently.

 

[smallspy]

The car storage income stream might have passed. There was a glut of new rolling stock after the government mandated new standards, just before the bust in production. While I haven't be roaming around the area much lately, there were none at Utopia and Penetang spur a month of so ago where they previously were. I haven't been to the south end/Innisfil to notice the lines down there. Perhaps the owners have found their own space or put them into service.

Many of the goods transported by railway are seasonal, or at least have seasonal swings in traffic that require for some percentage of the rolling stock to be stored for periods of time. Think of grain or autos, for instance.

On top of that, railroad traffic has been down across the continent for the past 10 months. This means that fewer railcars need to be in service at any given time.

And to top all of that off, there are a number of people who've seen the pandemic as an opportunity - they haven't been able to pursue their normal business operations, but have enough space to get into the railcar storage game.

There is absolutely a need for railcar storage still, and will be going forward for the foreseeable future. But there are also many more players in the game, and so it may be harder for the BCRY to win contracts for the next little while.

Dan

 

[ShonTron]

It's also interesting to see that they will be able to make hundreds of thousands of dollars from the billboards. That will cut into the deficit.

I also heard that they have been trainsloading recently.

All the railways figured out that they can put billboards along their ROWs, despite MTO regulations prohibiting third-party signs close to 400-series highways. Metrolinx is really bad for this, but CN and CP figured it out too.

 

[2transpo]

One of the nice things is that Barrie is looking to ramp up revenue as a solution to the BCRY's deficit rather than scrapping it. It seems like the billboards have huge revenue potential which will help with sustainability. It is refreshing to see that a city values the idea of using the railway to grow its industrial sector.

 

[Allandale25]

 

[micheal_can]

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Trains are not fast enough, or reliable enough for courier service.

 

[2transpo]

It is too bad that a rail customer isn't locating there, but importantly, Barrie sees growth options in the BCRY and has gotten some new shippers on board over the last year.

 

[Fritter]

Trains are not fast enough, or reliable enough for courier service.

I often watch a YouTube Channel called Virtual Rail Fan which is a collection of CCTV cameras along various rail routes. I have noticed that many of the American trains often have piggybacked truck trailers of the courier companies (FedEx, UPS and Amazon) I have wondered why those courier companies don't do the same up here especially for longer distance trips. Piggy Back the trailers long haul, then have trucks deliver the trailers last mile.

 

[lenaitch]

I often watch a YouTube Channel called Virtual Rail Fan which is a collection of CCTV cameras along various rail routes. I have noticed that many of the American trains often have piggybacked truck trailers of the courier companies (FedEx, UPS and Amazon) I have wondered why those courier companies don't do the same up here especially for longer distance trips. Piggy Back the trailers long haul, then have trucks deliver the trailers last mile.

Pggyback, Roadrailer, etc. seems to have fizzled here. Others more knowledgeable probably know why. Maybe distance and our distributed population centres played a role. I imagine by the time it takes to assemble a train in Montreal a truck could already be in Toronto. Also, with such a low level of domestic manufacturing, a lot of our non-bulk cargo is already in a container at a port.

 

[drum118]

Pggyback, Roadrailer, etc. seems to have fizzled here. Others more knowledgeable probably know why. Maybe distance and our distributed population centres played a role. I imagine by the time it takes to assemble a train in Montreal a truck could already be in Toronto. Also, with such a low level of domestic manufacturing, a lot of our non-bulk cargo is already in a container at a port.

TOFC has been declining for years as it far cheaper to stack and store containers than trailers. It also cheaper to built the trailer for containers than trailers as trailers.

Unless you are shipping over a 1,000 miles, cheaper to use the road than rail.

Some business may have a number of cars on a siding at any given time as they act as storage cars until X is needed from them and then replace by another set as needed. Mostly hopper and tank cars are use for this service. Box cars are off loaded/loaded fast as they can so another set of cars are brought in.

You still see the Roadrailer around, but not as much in the past as well being a lot shorter trains. Don't know if CN still running the Roadrailer these days after taking over it from CP and CP dropping the Ironrail service.

Trucks today are mainly on time demand service since most places have little warehouse space compare to the past and RR is still not at this level with exception of a few specials runs.

There is one transport company that see very few trailer up here compare to the past and one of the largest in NA. Even when train watch in Buffalo, was seeing very few of their trails as well containers on trains. Don't see much TOFC on Buffalo trains for some time or other parts of the US.

You need one item per trailer to use rail and some trailers are containing more than one item on the road

 

[smallspy]

I often watch a YouTube Channel called Virtual Rail Fan which is a collection of CCTV cameras along various rail routes. I have noticed that many of the American trains often have piggybacked truck trailers of the courier companies (FedEx, UPS and Amazon) I have wondered why those courier companies don't do the same up here especially for longer distance trips. Piggy Back the trailers long haul, then have trucks deliver the trailers last mile.

There are a number of reasons for this.

First off, historically there were more railroads covering a defined service area in the US than there were in Canada. That means that they had to compete harder with each other to get the business, and they were willing to take larger risks or approach more marginal markets, such as medium-to-long haul trailer-on-flatcar. Some of this mindset has remained today despite the concentration of routes into just a handful of railways in the past 50 years or so, although in some cases the business has remained simply because it was there in the first place.

Second off, there is just frankly more traffic/transport in the US than there is in Canada. There just isn't the same critical mass here.

Third is that a significant portion of the interstate highway network has tolls, versus the very small proportion of highways here. That means that the use of the train can also serve as a form of direct cost avoidance.

Finally - in spite of all this, there is actually a surprising amount of parcel traffic on Canada's railroads - it's just not as obvious as it looks at first blush. All of the couriers (including Canada Post) use private trucking firms to some degree for their long-haul services, and it's not uncommon for them to also use trains - although in this case its usually via domestic container, rather than a whole trailer - for some services. You won't see UPS or FedEx containers on a train, but you will see trailers from Arnold Brothers or Kindersley instead.

Dan

 

[Bordercollie]

There are a number of reasons for this.

First off, historically there were more railroads covering a defined service area in the US than there were in Canada. That means that they had to compete harder with each other to get the business, and they were willing to take larger risks or approach more marginal markets, such as medium-to-long haul trailer-on-flatcar. Some of this mindset has remained today despite the concentration of routes into just a handful of railways in the past 50 years or so, although in some cases the business has remained simply because it was there in the first place.

Second off, there is just frankly more traffic/transport in the US than there is in Canada. There just isn't the same critical mass here.

Third is that a significant portion of the interstate highway network has tolls, versus the very small proportion of highways here. That means that the use of the train can also serve as a form of direct cost avoidance.

Finally - in spite of all this, there is actually a surprising amount of parcel traffic on Canada's railroads - it's just not as obvious as it looks at first blush. All of the couriers (including Canada Post) use private trucking firms to some degree for their long-haul services, and it's not uncommon for them to also use trains - although in this case its usually via domestic container, rather than a whole trailer - for some services. You won't see UPS or FedEx containers on a train, but you will see trailers from Arnold Brothers or Kindersley instead.

Dan

Dont forget Amazon.

Guess they got a good bulk rate.

 

[2transpo]

Hypothetically, what is stopping companies dependent on BCRY like TAG Environmental and Comet Chemical from just pulling up stakes and moving somewhere else with rail access? There are a lot of industrial parks with rail opening up around the province. Would it be in Barrie's interest to get these companies to move out so they could close the railway and stop the deficit?

 

[lenaitch]

The city seems willing to keep the infrastructure and maybe they don't want to chase business away and close off options for any new ones and, you know, employ people locally. Nothing external is stopping the companies, they can go wherever will have them, but it seems they're happy with what they have where they are..

 

[2transpo]

The city seems willing to keep the infrastructure and maybe they don't want to chase business away and close off options for any new ones and, you know, employ people locally.

Not taking an Orangeville approach then lol. I'm not sure about this though. People were freaking out about the companies leaving Orangeville without rail but as it is seen, they won't, they were just bluffing. The OBRAG was just looking for handouts and the town called their bluff. They will continue to operate, just with trucks at a lower cost to Orangeville.