After more than a year of virtually nothing happening – either on the ground or behind the scenes – with regard to the unusable section of the Hudson Bay Railway north of Gillam to Churchill, suddenly there is, in relative terms at least, all sorts of action.
It began with an announcement that OmniTrax, which bought the railway from The Pas to Churchill as well as the Port of Churchill in 1997, had an agreement in principle to sell the railway and its other Northern Manitoba assets to a northern ownership group, which includes the Town of Churchill, Fairfax Financial Holdings and Missinippi Rail Limited Partnership.
Now, as a result of a complaint filed with the Canadian Transportation Agency by the Manitoba NDP, the Hudson Bay Railway company has been ordered to begin repairs on the unusable section of track by July 3 and to provide monthly reports on the state of the repairs every month after that.
All of which is great, but still hasn’t achieved the ultimate goal of all the words that have been uttered and written about the situation since it began: restoring a land-based transportation link to the Hudson Bay port town.
That these developments, which are really only hints of developments that may come to pass, are seen as big news, is a testament to how completely the railway has abandoned its obligations since declaring that flooding-related damage to the railway constituted a force majeure that absolved it of responsibility, even going so far at times as to suggest that the unprofitable nature of the rail line means that it should be operated as a public utility, though not so far as to, say, relinquish ownership, or at least not until it gets the price that it wants for the rail line and port.
Unfortunately, this has quite likely been OmniTrax’s game plan all along. The reality is that the longer they did nothing, the more urgently others would begin seeking solutions to the problem and attempting to sweeten the pot enough for the current owners to walk away on paper, the way they already have on the ground and in every meaningful way.
Though this situation is regrettable and perhaps should never have been allowed to get to this point, it is good news for Churchill that small steps are being taken towards an eventual restoration of rail service to the town, because for a long time, even these minor steps must have seemed unfathomable. Another reality is that as much as some people made it seem like an eventual solution to this impasse was inevitable, it really wasn’t and the fact that whatever progress has been made so far ever occurred was only because of constant pressure from residents and the town’s mayor and council, who’ve spent endless hours behind the scenes lobbying and putting pressure on more powerful politicians to do something. Now, finally, after months when it must have seemed almost hopeless and as if all that time was being wasted, a little ray of light is finally starting to show at the end of the tunnel. There’s a lot of work to be done before the process breaks through and a train rolls back into Churchill. But at least right now, there is hope and that may be enough for Churchill residents to cling onto until something more substantial and concrete happens along.
