30 April 2009
Ottawa Valley Mayors Seeking Railway Answers
Pembroke Ontario - The trains don't seem to be
running through the Ottawa Valley anymore and Renfrew County council members want to know why.
Petawawa Mayor Bob Sweet told council during its meeting Wednesday he is concerned about the sudden lack of rail traffic on the Ottawa
Valley Railway tracks and wonders if the line has been abandoned.
A 72-car train did run through Petawawa and Pembroke on Tuesday evening, but few if any have followed before or since.
"No one has contacted us about this and I can't get a hold of anyone," he said, noting if the line will no longer be used,
he would at least like a courtesy call to let him know what is happening.
Mayor Sweet said Petawawa pays about $30,000 a year in easement fees and to maintain the railway crossings. He asked the county to
draft a letter to send to the rail company in the hope of getting some sort of response.
Laurentian Hills Mayor Vance Gutzman agreed, stating his council and its municipal neighbours in the northern half of the county are
drafting their own letter to OVR.
"When we want answers on something like this, they are nowhere to be found," he said, noting what is happening to the
railway "affects all of us all the way down the line."
The Ottawa Valley Railway (OVR) is a shortline railroad which operates 340 miles of track between Coniston and Smiths Falls, with
Canadian Pacific (CP) interchanges at Sudbury and Smiths Falls.
It began operations on the CPR's former Ottawa Valley line on 30 Oct 1996 and control was assumed by RailAmerica
following its takeover of RaiLink in July 1999.
The OVR issued a press release on Monday stating because of a major decline in business, the company was forced to lay off 30
employees in its transportation department.
This is the result of a decision by Canadian Pacific Railway, OVR's major customer, to reroute its freight trains away from the Ottawa
Valley and onto its lines running between Sudbury and Montreal by way of Toronto. CP decided to consolidate its reduced volume of
train traffic onto its own lines, a decision brought on by an overall drop in business.
The reroute could last for the rest of 2009.
Scott Campbell, general manager of OVR, stated in the press release the company is disappointed in having to reduce its workforce, but
had little choice.
"This is an incredibly unfortunate outcome of the declining economy," he said. "However, we hope when the economy
rebounds that we can return to normal employment levels."
Contacted by telephone, OVR spokesperson Michelle King said the layoffs and the lack of rail traffic are directly connected to the
decision by CP to reroute the trains off of the OVR line.
"Some 85 percent of our traffic is CP trains," she said, with the remaining 15 percent being shipments for the paper company
Tembec and other local businesses.
Ms. King said she couldn't comment on CP's decision to reroute the trains, but added OVR is hoping things will return to normal.
Mayor Sweet said he has heard a mitigating circumstance in this situation could be a dispute he has read about between OVR and CP over
the maintenance of the rail line.
"I read in The North Bay Nugget there is a feud over line maintenance which may have caused this," he said.
In a series of stories printed in April in The Nugget, Rene Leclerc, the general chairman for Teamsters Rail Conference Line East
which represents more than 50 OVR workers in the North Bay area, was quoted as saying CP and RailAmerica have been feuding over who
will pay for rail maintenance and upgrades to the tracks from Smiths Falls to North Bay.
CP owns the rail line, however RailAmerica, which operates OVR, uses the tracks to transport forest products and cargo.
Mr. Leclerc said in the stories he has heard rumours CP is considering shutting down the Smiths Falls to North Bay line because it
doesn't want to invest in track maintenance.
In Wednesday's Nugget, Mike Lovecchio, a CPR spokesman, was quoted saying the decision to reroute train traffic was a reflection of
the economy. He stated from a cost perspective it's not feasible to maintain two corridors when only one is necessary.
In the story, Mr. Lovecchio said this decision to reroute train traffic wasn't due to any dispute between OVR and CPR over rail line
maintenance.
"These changes are entirely based on traffic volumes," he said, noting by the end of March Canadian Pacific traffic volume
was down 19 percent.
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