Farmers are busy right now preparing for harvest, moving that crop to market is key.

CP Rail is preparing for another strong crop noting they were pleased with movement last year.  

CP Rail wrapped up the 2018-19 crop year on a positive note moving 26.8 million metric tonnes of grain and grain products.

Joan Hardy, CP’s Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Grain and Fertilizer, says that’s 2.8% more than the previous record which was in the 2017-18 season and 3.9% more than the three-year average.

She notes CP has implemented a number of new efficiencies that have resulted in a 44% increase in grain volume such as the addition of new grain cars.

“These high capacity hopper cars are capable of carrying more grain than the prior generation of rail cars that they are replacing. In addition to these new hopper cars, we also have introduced our 8500-foot high-efficiency product train model or we call it our 8500-foot HEP Train model.”

She says the grain industry is also investing in infrastructure to upgrade their tracks for the new 8500-foot HEP train.

CP is also hiring more staff, modernizing locomotives and investing in the new high capacity grain cars.

Hardy says CP is anticipating a strong crop for the 2019-2020 crop year and with the new efficiencies coming online they are looking at increasing their grain handling.

“For the coming crop year, we are planning to supply and spot 5700-grain hopper cars each week, which is an increase over the 5500 cars per week that we had supplied last fall.”

CP’s Grain Service Outlook Report shows 775 new employees are in training, with 1900 high capacity grain hopper cars and 170 modernized locomotives expected to be in place by the end of the year.