Rail Link Sparks Scrap

A Burnside, Nova Scotia, scrap-metal company says it faces ruin because of Canadian National’s decision to remove a crucial rail link.

Maritime Metal Inc., a subsidiary of Laval, Que.-based SNF Inc., is looking at “irreparable” damage with the railway’s move, a senior executive with SNF said recently.

“This decision made by CN is, for us, totally illogical and inexplicable given all the damage,” said Eric Boucher.

SNF was first drawn to the site in Burnside in 2003 by the rail line’s spur that ran alongside its back property line. Without that line, Boucher said the company and its 25 jobs would have gone somewhere else.

But before the company produced its first load of scrap metal from the site, a CN crew showed up and started removing track.

Before they were stopped, the crew had taken out nearly 300 meters of track.

Barely 50 meters remain, not enough to hold the 14 rail cars a week, Boucher said the company needs to maintain production schedules. The remaining tracks can barely hold two, severely restricting operations at the Burnside yard.

Matters are further complicated by bylaws that prevent the company from keeping scrap in the yard for more than two days, Boucher said.

Maritime Metal trucks some of its scrap, but more than 80 percent is sent by rail to a plant outside Quebec City. Boucher said it is not economical to truck scrap that distance.

Boucher said CN officials promised Maritime Metal that when the need was there, the tracks would be re-installed.

But six months ago, Boucher said CN informed SNF that it was selling the right-of-way that once held the tracks to a Halifax property developer, Fee Leasing Ltd.

Boucher said he has no idea what Fee plans for the vacant site.

CN spokesman Mark Hollman said SNF was given an opportunity to buy the right-of-way but missed its chance.

“We indicated to them that we were entertaining an offer from another party for the property, but at the end of the day (SNF) was slow off the mark,” he said.

Hollman said CN provides service five days a week to the SNF yard, a level that should allow the company to keep operating.

Why the tracks were removed and the right-of-way sold while it was still serving customers remains a mystery to Boucher. He said he can only speculate that CN’s real estate and operations divisions are not talking to each other.

Boucher said the company deserves better from CN. “We’re not Steelco, but we deserve to be respected,” he said. Halifax (Nova Scotia) Daily News