Much-Needed Canada Grain Piles Up Amid Rail Bottleneck
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A combine harvester cuts wheat on a farm near Dinsmore, Saskatchewan in August.
Photographer: Heywood Yu/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
The world sorely needs more grains and Canada has a bin-busting harvest this year -- but shippers fear there aren’t enough rail cars to transport it all.
There were almost 2,400 outstanding grain-car orders for the nation’s two major carriers, Canadian National Railway Co. and Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd., according to the latest data from the Ag Transport Coalition. That’s the worst backlog since flooding blocked access to Vancouver’s port in late 2021, stranding wheat and canola in the Prairies.