Churchill rail line repairs to begin immediately as purchase deal concluded


READ MORE

Repairs on a vital rail link to northern Manitoba are set to begin immediately, after a deal has been concluded to sell the flood-damaged rail line leading to Churchill, the federal government announced late Friday afternoon.


A consortium called Arctic Gateway Group Limited Partnership has purchased the Hudson Bay Rail Company, the Hudson Bay Port Company and the Churchill Marine Tank Farm from Denver-based Omnitrax Inc.


Arctic Gateway is a private-public partnership that includes Missinippi Rail Limited Partnership, Fairfax Financial Holdings and AGT Limited Partnership.


Fairfax, a Toronto-based investment company, announced last November it would partner with Missinippi Rail, a group representing northern communities, in an effort to buy Omnitrax’s northern Manitoba assets.


The arrangement includes the participation of 30 First Nations and 11 non-First Nation communities in northern Manitoba and seven Kivalliq communities in western Nunavut, along with Fairfax and AGT, a Canadian processor of pulses and other food ingredients​, the government said last May.


HBR was ordered to start repairs in June


“I am so pleased to announce the start of the restoration of the rail line linking Churchill and the surrounding communities to the rest of Canada,” said International Trade Diversification Minister Jim Carr in a release Friday.


“I want Canadians living in northern Manitoba and Nunavut to know that the Government of Canada understands the importance of the line to their daily lives. Thank you for your patience and to the buying group for committing to begin work on the repairs.”


In June, the Canadian Transportation Agency issued an order to Hudson Bay Railway to start repairs, following a complaint filed by Manitoba’s Opposition NDP.


In July the CTA started a compliance review of what efforts Hudson Bay Railway has undertaken to get the repair work started.


Omnitrax Rail Inc., the owner of both the rail line and the Port of Churchill, has claimed it couldn’t fix the damaged tracks because it doesn’t have the money.


The line — the only land route to Churchill, 1,000 kilometres north of Winnipeg — has been idle since it was damaged by flooding in May of 2017.


The closure of the line has meant increases in fuel and food costs for the community, as items had to be transported by air or ship.


‘Racing against time’


Arctic Gateway will be co-ordinating repairs to the line and the group says crews have been mobilized to start work immediately.


“We are racing against time,” said Fairfax Financial president Paul Rivett in a release. The new owners are aiming to have the rail line operating again before winter.


“Phase 1 of the project will be to repair the rail line, undertake safety and rehabilitation upgrades to the port and the railway assets. We will commence the repairs and do all we can to restore service expeditiously and safely.


“We will immediately begin our work to make the broader project also a reality.”


In an email statement Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister praised the deal and said plans are in place if the line can’t be fixed before winter.


“We are hopeful the repair of the rail line can occur as soon as possible so that service can be resumed before freeze-up,” he said.


“However, we want to reassure the people of Churchill and the surrounding northern communities that we have already made the financial commitments and logistical arrangements necessary to ensure propane resupply for the winter.”


Omnitrax had previously estimated it would take approximately 60 days and cost between $40 million and $60 million to get the minimum repairs completed to restore light passenger-rail service to Churchill, Canada’s only deep-water arctic port.


The negotiations for the purchase of Hudson Bay Railway’s Manitoba assets, including a rail yard in The Pas and a marine fuel tank farm in Churchill, along with the rail line and port, have been going on for months.



Article source: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/heather-heyer-charlottesville-victim-1.4245765?cmp=rss


Best Wordpress Plugin development company in India     Best Web development company in India

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Canadian expected to be aboard Russia's 1st manned space mission since rocket failure

READ MORE The first manned mission to the International Space Station since a Russian rocket failed to launch successfully earlier this month may take off on Dec. 3, space agency Roscosmos said on Wednesday. And the crew is expected to include Canadian astronaut David Saint-Jacques, Agence France-Press reported. A Russian cosmonaut and U.S. astronaut were forced to abort their mission on Oct. 11 and perform an emergency landing after a launch accident that Roscomos said was caused by a faulty sensor. The accident was the first serious launch problem experienced by a manned Soyuz space mission since 1983, when a crew narrowly escaped before a launch pad explosion. Sergei Krikalyov, a senior Roscosmos official, was quoted by state news agency Tass as saying the next manned launch had been planned for mid-December, but that Russia was trying to bring the date forward so that the ISS is not briefly left without a crew. “The industry is making significant efforts to move the launch t...
Read more

Getting the dope on pot stocks is becoming easier as media groups invest in content: Don Pittis

Image
READ MORE “What’s the buzz? Tell me what’s happening,” goes the ’70s rock anthem. Part of the catchiness of the lyric — from the rock musical Jesus Christ Superstar  — was that in that era the term “buzz” had developed a second spicy meaning. It described the high that people got from smoking cannabis. In the 1970s, the magazine High Times was a brand new title keeping an eye on the illegal but growing business of marijuana pricing and sales. It ran centrefolds of glistening pot plants and of an apartment filled to the windows with what the magazine insisted was an entire ton of cannabis. Now some of Canada’s most staid media voices are looking for ways to go toe to toe with High Times and its U.S. competitors, hoping to profit from Canada’s global head start in legal recreational cannabis. But when it comes to making a killing from spreading the buzz on the cannabis biz, to q...
Read more

Tense standoff ends as RCMP arrest 4th suspect in Mountie shooting

Image
READ MORE Four suspects are in control in the western Manitoba sharpened of a Mountie who is recuperating in sanatorium in Winnipeg. The harmed officer is 42-year-old Cpl. Graeme Kingdon, of Erickson, Man., who is married and has two children, according to a mayor of Erickson and members of his extended family. He is in fast condition, military say. RCMP Cpl. Graeme Kingdon, who was shot Wednesday night, is reported to be in fast condition in a Winnipeg hospital. (Graeme Kingdon/Facebook) The fourth think in a sharpened was arrested after an hours-long deadlock Thursday with RCMP in Neepawa, that is about 50 kilometres from Onanole, where the officer was shot Wednesday night after responding to a news about a break-in. Dozens of military officers, including members of the RCMP tactical unit, had surrounded a chateau in Neepawa around 11:45 a.m. CT on Thursday. The arrest happened only before 3 p.m. when mem...
Read more