BARRIE - The 1954 locomotive, with its 1750 horsepower engine, pulls out of Utopia and heads east along the industrial spur that serves Barrie and Innisfil businesses.

It’s a Friday, a quiet day, with a few runs to a couple of key customers located along the 38-mile line. Earlier in the week, the trains were bringing in the supplies. Today, they pick up empty cars.

Thanks to tight economic times in the American manufacturing heartland, the loads being shipped into Ontario and finally Simcoe County along CP Rail’s mainline are lighter.

But still, Barrie-area businesses need the thrice-weekly train service that brings in raw materials and ships out processed goods. Tuesdays and Thursdays, the train runs between Utopia and Collingwood.

It links rural and urban businesses with the North American market. But because of that, the rail service is very vulnerable to the economic winds that blow across North America’s manufacturing heartland, explained Steve Gallagher, the operations manager of CANDO Contracting, which operates the Barrie-Collingwood Railways, as well as the Orangevile-Brampton Railway.

“What’s important for us is we’re a little railway, a little cog in the wheel. We have to work with our Class 1 partner, CP,” said Gallagher.

Linking the Innisfil Heights area along Highway 400 with the industrial area in east Collingwood, the BCRY helps an array of businesses ship grain and lumber, clays, resin and chemicals. From Collingwood comes denatured alcohol, which heads south to Kentucky, like many other goods, from Utopia, where CANDO loads them onto the CPR’s North American network.

Rail provides an affordable – and very green – option, he explained.

“In a mid-sized company, you can be talking millions of dollars in savings by using rail over truck.

A typical rail car can hold 2.5 to 4.5 truckloads, depending on the type of product,” he explained.
“In the United States, there are weight and other restrictions (on highways), and we can put 95 tonnes on a rail car.”

Even in Ontario in the springtime, there can be road weight restrictions, which increase rail’s value. Being able to ship 200,000 pounds of product on a rail car – compared to 40,000 pounds on a truck – can mean the difference in just-in-time delivery or profit.

“We’re taking trucks off the roads. That’s the green effect,” he said, adding reducing truck weight means less wear and tear on roads. That saves governments of all levels money.

“I had a customer moving treated lumber to its western partner in the United States. They were saving $11,000 per rail car (over truck),” he noted.

 “Some of these companies really rely on rail for the transportation of their components, and without the train, they could have gone bust.”

Canadian Mist in Collingwood relies on the railway’s efficient shipping for its raw material – and its finished products.

“Canadian Mist relies on BCRY to provide door-to-door rail service for our dedicated rail tank cars for shipment of 50 per cent of our finished product and 100 per cent of our barley malt needs,” said Harold Ferguson, the company’s general manager.

Another customer is Collingwood Ethanol, now known as Amaizeingly Green, which produces not just ethanol, but also pet and animal food, corn oil, cornstarch, and industrial alcohol.

Denatured alcohol travels southwards to Kentucky, where it’s given its special flavour and bottled.

Not far away in Stayner is FS Partners, which imports, stores, dries and distributes varieties of wheat, soy, canola and barley.

From the east, the customers include Comet Chemical, Tarpin Lumber, the Drilling Depot and Bentofix Technologies, which produces bentolite, a clay product.

Both Barrie and Collingwood highlight the service to attract industry. That was the plan when the two communities partnered to buy the line and hired CANDO to run the industrial service.

With the hardware and staff in place, the BCRY could grow with the region as businesses in the area grow to accommodate Ontario’s plan for more people and jobs in the picturesque area that’s on the doorstep of the GTA.

Collingwood Mayor Chris Carrier said the town’s working on a business plan to examine how to bolster freight – and possibly add tourism – along the line. A report is due to be presented to Collingwood council before Christmas.

“As energy costs escalate, rail becomes more and more favourable as a transportation vehicle. For every rail car, four transport trucks are off the road. Rail is not delayed at border crossings, as transport trucks are – and that costs valuable time and money,” he said.

“We are working with Simcoe County as they have identified rail as one of their transportation initiatives (in its transportation master plan),” he added, noting that preserving rail is key. “Once the rail is gone, we will not get it back.”

And because the rail links local businesses with the North American market, the bitter economic winds that have chilled America’s heartland have been felt here too.

Loads are lighter these days, lighter than they were last year, and much lighter than a couple of years ago.

The closure of the Molson brewery in 2000 hit the business, and more recent economic challenges have had their impact too. Last year, there were only 595 carloads shipped or received, down from 652 in 2007. As business changes, so do the loads.

“The rail business in Canada is a barometer of the economy,” said Gallagher. “Rail businesses across North America have declined 25 to 30 per cent since last year at this time. Our numbers are similar. The recession has had an effect on us, because it’s had an effect on our customers. They’re not shipping as much.”

Yet Barrie and Collingwood saw the potential – and still see the potential – for the rail service, which they both view as an economic development tool, a very green option, that’s summed up in the words: reliable, affordable and sustainable transportation.

Reporter Laurie Watt went for a ride on the BCRY. To watch a video click here.