A Moly-Cop worker displays their product - Date/Photographer unknown.

4 September 2013

Moly-Cop Relieved as Rail Service Resumes Temporarily

Kamloops British Columbia - Nearly two months after the halting of railway service to Moly-Cop caused the Kamloops industrial plant to hemorrhage money, the pain has relented, for now.
 
"We are getting relief, thank goodness," said Maurice Hindle, Moly-Cop sales manager.
 
CP Rail has resumed service to the track running through the plant but only for the short term.
 
Moly-Cop will remain on tenterhooks until a long-term service agreement is reached with either CP or CN Rail, said Hindle.
 
"There's a total separation between what CP Rail is doing and what we're trying to arrange long term."
 
The company, however, is optimistic, he said.
 
Even so, it is spending more than before the rail snafu since materials and products are in the process of being transported by truck.
 
"We're in a transition period right now," said Hindle.
 
They haven't yet tallied the total cost of lost rail service but in previous interviews Hindle said it was hundreds of thousands of dollars each month.
 
The CP Rail track through the plant's site has sat unused since Kelowna Pacific Railway went bankrupt in early July.
 
Moly-Cop's appeals to CP Rail and to KPR's contractor CN Rail to resume service appeared to fall on deaf ears for nearly two months.
 
Each railway's response had been to point to the other.
 
Late last month, Moly-Cop filed a complaint with the Canadian Transportation Agency under the Fair Rail Freight Service Act.
 
The act, passed only in June, assures businesses the right to railway service in Canada.
 
That complaints process has now been suspended since service has resumed, said Hindle.
 
He added that he's not sure what caused CP to finally respond to requests for service.
 
"I know what buttons we pushed but I really don't know in the end what pushed them over the edge."
 
Author unknown.

Vancouver Island
British Columbia
Canada