CentrePort Canada | Winnipeg

[Riverman]

Originally Posted by Cyro

This pretty much gives you the jist of what the article contained.
They did enter the Winnipeg market in 2014 so it may just be a move to a newer facility as mentioned above.

They have been on Route 90 for as long as I can remember, at least since the early 80s. The company has changed hands a few times but the operation has always been there.

[Cyro]

Thanks for the clarification River..

Their was a fair bit of History behind the company all the way back to 1962..

http://www.isco-pipe.com/about-us/company-history/

This was the information provided for their Canadian operations..

ISCO Industries opened their doors in Crossfield, Alberta in 2007, moving that shop to Calgary in 2014. With the addition of facilities in Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Montreal in 2014,

http://www.isco-pipe.com/markets/int...l/isco-canada/

[optimusREIM]

Don't know if this made it to these boards yet:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manito...port-1.3345567

[BigG]

It looks like there will be a new anchor tenant at CentrePoint - BroadGrain Commodities Inc. will build a 25 million dollar facility on the site.

http://www.cjob.com/2016/01/14/112029/

[bomberjet]

Interesting.there was at least one high profile Winnipeg based company in the mix last year.

They also note one former Canadian priemer will be leading the task force on rail relocation. Gary Doer?

[BigG]

^^That's a real good guess. Don't know if there's a reason they stated Canadian Premier rather than Manitoba Premier.

[bomberjet]

Jean Charest is the guy. Weird.

I don't want to be a debbie downer, but I think all this rail relocation talk is for not. Again. Once they get into this, it'll be interesting to see exactly what will be moved. From my understanding, we're not talking about moving all the main tracks and the like, but just CP's yard. I've heard from numerous people CN and CP simply will not accept having their main tracks detoured around the City. I think the City wants and hopes for it, but in reality not feasible.

I also find it rather amusing about the new buffer zones that are placed around railways. A certain someone posted a map yesterday on Twitter showing how the buffer zones affect existing houses. Okay... Those people purchased houses right beside rail lines, and now all of a sudden people are going to die? Those buffer zones are for new developments. So we're proposing to remove all the rail lines based on new regulations? Shit we better close all roads, buildings, shit close MTS Centre. All are designed to old standards.. They might fail at any moment.

Lol I'm being dramatic, but the rail relocation thing is all drama and knee jerking.

CBC news article: http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/m...ions-1.3401310

[CoryB]

Simple realities of relocating rail:

1. Winnipeg is a major maintenance location for both CN and CP.
2. Those maintenance activities currently occur inside the city.
3. The maintenance facilities are geographical large in scope.
4. Maintenance work on trains requires rail lines in and out of the yards.
5. The maintenance yards are significant employers in the community.
6. Workers, regardless of industry, tend to live close to their place of employment.

Relocating all the rail lines out of Winnipeg means those yards need to leave too. So for the new rail line you need several Rural Municipalities and their residents on board supporting the new route. Opposition from any one of those RMs could sink the whole plan. You then need at least one RM willing to become the host to the new maintenance yards. On top of that you are then going to promote the relocation of a significant number of families out of Winnipeg to some nearby RM, or even worse to another province.

Yes, this "relocate rail out of Winnipeg" plan sounds like a real winning idea.

[esquire]

Rail line relocation is going to be a disaster.

Pros
-Removing need for grade separations
-Opening up land for development
-Eliminating threat of Lac Megantic type disasters (despite the fact that we have no mountains or large hills that would ever result in that kind of scenario)

Cons
-Immense cost of moving thousands of acres of railway lines, yards, shops and associated infrastructure outside the city
-Massive tax hit as rail dependent businesses relocate out of Winnipeg or possibly out of Manitoba
-Massive population hit as railway employees leave town
-Immense environmental remediation bills (think about how expensive it is to reclaim gas station lands, now imagine a site as large as hundreds of gas stations that have been soaking up waste for 100+ years)
-Low land values as the land occupied by CP in particular is some of the least in demand land in the entire city, which will only add to the cost by requiring subsidies. Do you know anyone who wants to buy a condo in the shadow of the Slaw Rebchuk Bridge?
-Huge project scale with potential for cost overruns that will make famous Canadian governmental cockups like the Montreal Olympics look like a rounding error on your lunch bill.

Rail line relocation is an absolute minefield fraught with risk. It would be a different story if the railways were shutting down and leaving the land behind, but in this case the public would have to pick up the costs associated with building brand new infrastructure. The upside is low, while the downside is potentially catastrophic. Frankly, this makes Bipole III look like a prudent decision.

[bomberjet]

Everyone's thumping the Lac Megantic drum. Horrible, horrible thing no doubt. That was human error. If we fix all the issues with people, the amount of risk significantly decreases.

How many people are killed yearly due to train derailments? I would like to know. My guess, 0.


Edit: A lot of good info here. http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/stats/rail/2013/ssro-2013.asp

That is from 2013, with the 47 people killed at Lac Megantic. The other years range from 0-3 people killed due to main track derailments. They are usually railway employees, likely locomotive engineers and conductors. The rest are mostly crossing and trespass related.

[esquire]

The main factors at play in Lac Megantic are simply not present here... a shortline railway with slipshod operating practices (the railways moving heavy tonnage through Winnipeg are class 1 and tightly regulated) and hills and mountains that a train can accidentally roll down (obviously nonexistent).

[bomberjet]

The St. Boniface derailment from 2002 noted in the article was likely due to some form of maintenance issue. Broken rail, split tie, etc. The grades are quite flat throughout the whole City, for obvious reasons. CN further mitigates any elevation changes through downtown by being on the high line. This is for flood purposes, but the resulting track grades are virtually flat from Panet Road through to Fort Rouge Yard.

I get all this risks. But it just seems like everyone mostly talks about nuisance train delays at crossings as the reason. I don't know, it all seems like a waste of time. Some folks will saying we're going to spend $150M on a rail underpass at Waverley. Well actually there are a ton of road works unrelated to the actual crossing itself. Twinning of Taylor is pumped. Twinning of Waverley, which is not required for an underpass. The only thing related to the railway is the actual bridge, pump station and hole dug for the underapss. So maybe $25M, for reals.

[Cyro]

Originally Posted by optimusREIM

Don't know if this made it to these boards yet:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manito...port-1.3345567

Don't believe so Optimus..

Manitoba, Mexico launch trading partnership based at CentrePort
Dec 01, 2015 1:00 PM

Edited the link to the article..working now

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by esquire

Rail line relocation is going to be a disaster.

Pros
-Removing need for grade separations
-Opening up land for development
-Eliminating threat of Lac Megantic type disasters (despite the fact that we have no mountains or large hills that would ever result in that kind of scenario)

Cons
-Immense cost of moving thousands of acres of railway lines, yards, shops and associated infrastructure outside the city
-Massive tax hit as rail dependent businesses relocate out of Winnipeg or possibly out of Manitoba
-Massive population hit as railway employees leave town
-Immense environmental remediation bills (think about how expensive it is to reclaim gas station lands, now imagine a site as large as hundreds of gas stations that have been soaking up waste for 100+ years)
-Low land values as the land occupied by CP in particular is some of the least in demand land in the entire city, which will only add to the cost by requiring subsidies. Do you know anyone who wants to buy a condo in the shadow of the Slaw Rebchuk Bridge?
-Huge project scale with potential for cost overruns that will make famous Canadian governmental cockups like the Montreal Olympics look like a rounding error on your lunch bill.

Rail line relocation is an absolute minefield fraught with risk. It would be a different story if the railways were shutting down and leaving the land behind, but in this case the public would have to pick up the costs associated with building brand new infrastructure. The upside is low, while the downside is potentially catastrophic. Frankly, this makes Bipole III look like a prudent decision.

thing is your first line - removing the need for grade separations - might be similar in cost to all the other points you made regarding cost.

Its very easy to say it cant happen, but how do you know? Unless we actually study it in reality and are able to make a decision based on facts not fiction...how many businesses will actually be affected? How many employees are there really?

If it was re-located at centre port those jobs would remain here.

There is significant economic gain by redevelopment of the land and savings from not dealing with the trains that might more than cover the costs.

there is $1 billion+ of projects on the books right now to deal with crossings....I fail to see how the upside is low.

You are looking at the effect in the short term....losing rail workers...look at it long term and what it will do to the city in 50 years....using those corridors could be transformational....maybe nobody wants to live in the north end now, but this might actually change that....maybe some rail workers will leave, but maybe more people will come, or maybe we wont lose as many young people, because we've built a better city.

In my opinion RM's would be happy to have the economic growth associated with a relocated rail yard.

The federal government will pay for half.

[trueviking]

Originally Posted by esquire

The main factors at play in Lac Megantic are simply not present here... a shortline railway with slipshod operating practices (the railways moving heavy tonnage through Winnipeg are class 1 and tightly regulated) and hills and mountains that a train can accidentally roll down (obviously nonexistent).

a train de-railed at the forks less than a year ago.

[buzzg]

Originally Posted by bomberjet

I don't want to be a debbie downer, but I think all this rail relocation talk is for not. Again. Once they get into this, it'll be interesting to see exactly what will be moved. From my understanding, we're not talking about moving all the main tracks and the like, but just CP's yard. I've heard from numerous people CN and CP simply will not accept having their main tracks detoured around the City. I think the City wants and hopes for it, but in reality not feasible.

They don't have a choice. There's a law in place that if the municipality is willing to foot 50% of the costs, the federal government will pay the other 50%, and the rail companies have to move.

Originally Posted by bomberjet

I get all this risks. But it just seems like everyone mostly talks about nuisance train delays at crossings as the reason. I don't know, it all seems like a waste of time. Some folks will saying we're going to spend $150M on a rail underpass at Waverley. Well actually there are a ton of road works unrelated to the actual crossing itself. Twinning of Taylor is pumped. Twinning of Waverley, which is not required for an underpass. The only thing related to the railway is the actual bridge, pump station and hole dug for the underapss. So maybe $25M, for reals.

That cost is just for the underpass. The Taylor twinning is a separate cost, and one that honestly needs to happen either way. And Waverley is already "twinned" — there's no way you can build an underpass here for $25 million. Plus, we have to build a temporary road just to stage this project.

[bomberjet]

Originally Posted by buzzg

They don't have a choice. There's a law in place that if the municipality is willing to foot 50% of the costs, the federal government will pay the other 50%, and the rail companies have to move.



That cost is just for the underpass. The Taylor twinning is a separate cost, and one that honestly needs to happen either way. And Waverley is already "twinned" — there's no way you can build an underpass here for $25 million. Plus, we have to build a temporary road just to stage this project.

Well it's not so simple.

A link for reference. https://www.otc-cta.gc.ca/eng/public...es-urban-areas

I'll pull out one specific line: The accepted plan will facilitate the relocation of specific railway lines or operations around and away from an urban area in order to promote urban development.

Are we promoting urban development when removing a rail adjacent to existing houses? I don't think so. Is removing the yard to promote urban development, I would say yes.

It's not as black and white as saying we'll force them to move. Where does safety come into play here, I'm not sure.

[CoryB]

Originally Posted by trueviking

If it was re-located at centre port those jobs would remain here.

[...]In my opinion RM's would be happy to have the economic growth associated with a relocated rail yard.

Not an expert on land sizing and requirements but looking at Google Maps the size of the rail yards currently in Winnipeg seem to exceed the planned size of CentrePort. That is even counting the part that is in Roser and outside the COW tax base.

Another issue with relocation to CentrePort is it would be near impossible, space issues aside, to put all the rail industries in Winnipeg inside CentrePort and keep the rail lines outside the COW limits.

...

In terms of the relocation, sure the RM landing the maintenance yard might be happy but the one that only gains a main line run through it is more likely to put up opposition, even more so when a realigned main line to get to CentrePort seems extremely likely to run very close to the Pritchard Farm area of East St Paul. In theory Roser, West St Paul and Springfield might support that plan but if East St Paul is strongly opposed and could kill the whole thing.

...

As for Lac Megantic not happening here, as was pointed out there was a significant derailment not too long ago near Main and York in Winnipeg. The cars stayed upright and nothing was damaged but it could easily have been full oil cars derailing and leaving the curve of the track near Shaw Park while a packed crowd is at a Goldeyes game.

[bomberjet]

^ On the costing,the $150M estimate includes everything. Taylor, Waverley, and whatever other infrastructure needs to be built. The actual bridge for the underpass is smaller portion of that.

Similar to most other projects. Take the Transitway for example. $590M budget for the project. Holy smokes right. Actual construction cost for the entire project is somewhere around $400M, including contingencies. The rest is interest and maintenance cost for the next 30 years. Of the $400M, part is for transitway, other part is for Pembina Underpass. It further gets broken down, etc etc.

All the public sees is $600M for a transitway, when that's not the actual cost for construction. We're seeing this now on the Stadium. It's going to cost almost $400M by the time all the interest is paid back on the loan. Which is much higher than the $230M cost of construction (which is creeping higher and higher). Now everyone's up in arms about it.

[esquire]

I'm fine with studying the idea of rail line relocation, but as we have seen many times, the more complex the project the more difficulty there is in accurately capturing all of the costs.

Instead of jumping in head first with a study to relocate all of the rail lines and associated facilities (yards, industries, etc.), why not start with relocating ONE facility, for instance, the CP yards. Let's see how much it costs and how much success there is in redeveloping the land. Will anything actually be built on it without government money involved? I have my doubts.

I'll keep an open mind, but I think rail line relocation will ultimately be proven to be a penny wise, pound foolish act. To avoid spending $600 million on three grade separations (Waverley, Marion, Bill Clement) we're going to expose ourselves to many billions of dollars in demolition, cleanup and reconstruction costs, as well as a serious hit to the city's tax base, all to fix what is essentially an invented problem. The fact that the feds might absorb some of that hit is cold comfort... that's money that will be pulled from capital projects that won't happen in order to make way for this.