Weekly freight train service from Thompson to Churchill is set to resume Dec. 11 and Gardewine Group Limited Partnership is now accepting shipments again, the company said in a Dec. 3 press release.
Freight service to the Hudson Bay port town, which has no land transportation link other than the Hudson Bay Railway (HBR), has been limited mostly to air shipments since flooding washed out parts of the track between Gillam and Churchill in the spring of 2017.
The railway has been repaired since the Arctic Gateway group, a consortium of business, northern communities and First Nations, assumed ownership of the HBR and the Port of Churchill, as well as the Churchill Marine tank Farm, from former owner OmniTrax at the end of August. The first train in more than a year rolled into Churchill Oct. 31 and the first Via Rail passenger train since rail service was suspended left Winnipeg Dec. 2 and is expected to arrive in Churchill Dec. 4.
“We are excited to be working with Arctic Gateway and Nunavut Sealink and Supply Inc. to resume the shipping of goods by rail and barge to Churchill and the Kivalliq region,” said Gardewine president and chief operating officer Darin Downey in a press release.
Gardewine, Arctic Gateway and Nunavut Sealink and Supply Inc. are working together to offer a sealift service to distribute goods from Churchill to Nunavut’s Kivalliq region next spring.
A subsidiary of the Alberta-based Mullen Group Ltd., Gardewine is headquartered in Winnipeg and operates seven divisions – general freight, dedicated, deck, bulk, logistics, warehousing, and moving and and storage – that serve customers from B.C. to Quebec.
