Friday, 16 August 2013

Decision near on sale of Windsor rail line





 by David Guy ( allNovaScotia.com    Monday August 12th Edition)

An American business man expects to know within weeks if his bid to buy the dormant Windsor Junction to Windsor rail line has succeeded.
The Canadian Transportation Agency  (CTA) is acting, essentially as a mediator in the negotiations between CN Rail and the Windsor and Hantsport Railway, its owner Bob Schmidt said Thursday.
Both Schmidt and Jim Feeny, director public and government affairs at CN, said the process should be wrapped up by early September.
Schmidt said the CTA will issue a “ruling” on what a fair price should be for the 32 miles of track and ties and the land it sits on. Neither side is obligated by that ruling however.
Schmidt has owned the Windsor & Hantsport line either through a parent company or directly since 1994. The line has been dormant since Fundy Gypsum, its only customer, shut its Windsor-area mine in early 2011.
Why would the owner of an unused rail line want to buy an adjoining line, also unused?
For one thing, that 32 miles of track is the only way to connect his line in the Annapolis Valley to the rest of Canada.
Also, Schmidt said Thursday the gypsum business could revive if the demand for wallboard along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States improves. The supply of synthetic gypsum , a by-product of coal-fired power generation, could also dry up as coal-burning declines in North America and that could mean exponential growth in gypsum demand, he said.
“From my 20 years in the rail business, ... I see how business demands change over time,” said Schmidt.
He said, for instance, one railway in Maine in which he was a partner “used to be in the potato business and then that went away.”
“Then they went from a dying business moving potatoes to a thriving business moving pulp and fibre and lumber.”
“There could be a resurgence in the demand” for grain or other cargo from the Annapolis Valley.  Another possibility moving wood chips from a facility in the Valley to the paper mill in Port Hawkesbury.
“The bottom line is without that 32 miles, you can’t even bid on proposals of that sort,” he added.
Schimidt, based in Alexandria, Va., said in an earlier interview that the scrap value of the rail on the Windsor to Windsor Junction line is between $1 and $2million, while rebuilding it would cost $32 million.

(Thanks to Amy for spotting this and for Craig Wood for sending it.) 

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