Rail Companies Issue New Status Reports on Grain Car Backlog

Press Release

Today Congressman Kevin Cramer announced BNSF Railway and Canadian Pacific Railway (CP) have publicly filed updated weekly status reports on the backlog in grain shipments. The figures from BNSF show a total of 936 past due rail cars in North Dakota averaging 8 days late as of September 5, compared to the report the previous week which indicated 1,016 past due cars were averaging 10 days late. The CP report shows a total of 5,866 open requests in North Dakota with an average age of 12.54 weeks. The previous report showed 7,535 open requests with an average age of 13.14 weeks.

"The attendance at last week's STB hearing illustrates the seriousness of these delays," said Cramer. "It is encouraging to see continued progress from BNSF, while the reduction in open requests reported by CP appears to be primarily the result of orders being canceled, rather than fulfilled."

In June, the two companies were ordered by the STB to report their plans for resolving the backlog of grain car orders, and begin issuing weekly status reports until the problem is resolved. The BNSF report can be viewed here, and the CP report can be viewed here.

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