Mayor of Churchill says rail line repairs taking too long

The Mayor of Churchill said it’s taking far too long to survey the damage to the only rail line leading to his community.

The northern community on the west side of Hudson Bay relies heavily on the rail line to get important goods like food, fuel and propane since there is no road leading to the town.

OmniTRAX, the owner of the rail line, said it will take four weeks to determine exactly how badly spring flooding damaged the rail line and then another two weeks for an engineering report to be completed before the repairs can begin.

READ MORE: Photos show widespread damage on rail line to Churchill

“We’re not satisfied with that, I think that there needs to be a quicker assessment done and I think both the federal and provincial government need to be a part of that,” Michael Spence, Churchill’s mayor said.

He told reporters at a Winnipeg news conference the most important thing is that a commitment is made to get train service up and running.

“What’s critical here is that the rail line needs to be repaired, okay? That needs to be done,” he said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "What's critical here is that the rail line needs to be repaired, okay? That needs to be done," he said.

A crucial issue for the town is their propane supply, continued Spence, because up to 95 per cent of businesses and homes in the town of Churchill are heated with propane.

“You run out of heat … You’re done,” said Spence.

“What Omnitrax is saying is it’s not going to be up and running until spring, you know what? We need to go beyond that, we need to deal with this right now,” he continued.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "What Omnitrax is saying is it's not going to be up and running until spring, you know what? We need to go beyond that, we need to deal with this right now," he continued.

However the remoteness of the location and the terrain on which the track is built means it will take time to properly determine the best course of action, said Omnitrax Canada president Merv Tweed.

“The equipment and the other things that we will need particularly like ballast rock for the rail line is about a 70 mile haul into Gillam and then out to the site so it becomes a logisitcal challenge for sure,” said Tweed.

READ MORE: Churchill residents on edge after rail line cut off

Currently the town doesn’t have the propane storage capacity to last through the winter.

While in Winnipeg, Spence met with Premier Brian Pallister, who isn’t ready to commit to shipping subsidies for Churchill.

Pallister said it would be premature to offer any kind of subsidy until more is known about what commodities Churchill needs and how long repairs to the rail line will take.

“You don’t agree to a subsidy until you know what the subsidy is for. We haven’t assessed the damage on the rail line for example, we don’t know the time frames, we don’t know the nature of the supplies that are needed,” Pallister said.

“We have the advantage of a long runway so we know we can do additional air cargo but we’re not sure exactly what the nature of the list of things that’s needed is,” he continued.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We have the advantage of a long runway so we know we can do additional air cargo but we're not sure exactly what the nature of the list of things that's needed is," he continued.

There are potentially hundreds of culverts and dozens of bridges that will need to replaced or repaired along the rail line after it was badly damaged by flooding.

READ MORE: Train to Churchill, Man. suspended ‘indefinitely’ after flooding damage

“The rail line is owned and operated by OmniTRAX it is their property. I’m very interested obviously in determining to what degree they can fulfill the obligations in their contract and as expeditiously as possible,” said the Premier when asked If there is a place for the province to provide financial assistance to OmniTRAX to repair the rail line.

However, Tweed believes the provincial and federal governments should be spending money to help fix the line.

“We think it’s necessary for government to be involved, obviously it’s a service to the north and we think the government has a role to play,” said Tweed.

“We don’t have the resources or the equipment to do this repair, we’ve made that as a public statement but we’re hopeful others will participate in it,” he continued.

Pallister said declaring a state of emergency has been discussed but not yet implemented.

He also called on the federal government to commit financial assistance, “oh absolutely of course we do, the federal government has resources that are far beyond ours.”

Mayor Spence has reached out to the federal government to apply for the Nutrition North Canada program which is only available to fly-in communities.

It subsidizes healthy food items like produce, fresh meat and dairy.

“Government officials have engaged with the Mayor of Churchill to determine the full range of impacts resulting from the flooding and rail service disruption,” read a statement sent to Global News from a spokesperson with the federal government.