Rail line extension refused

THURSDAY, 31 OCTOBER 2013 02:00 RON SEYMOUR Kelowna Daily Courier
Lobbying efforts have failed to extend a deadline by which prospective operators of the Vernon-Kelowna railway must state their interest in running freight on the line. The Canadian Transportation Agency has upheld a Dec. 2 cutoff date for firms or interested groups to submit an application to take over the rail line from CN. "It's disappointing, because we were basically trying to take CN's foot off the gas in their efforts to quickly abandon the rail line," Kelowna-Lake Country MLA Norm Letnick said Wednesday. The CTA's decision is now being studied by Barry Penner, a Vancouver lawyer and former provincial cabinet minister who has been retained by a Kelowna business that depends on shipping product by rail, to see if an appeal is possible. "It's a bit unclear because the CTA's ruling has said there are 'serious issues' involved, but we don't know exactly what that means at this point," Letnick said. Kelowna Pacific Railway, which leased the line from CN for more than a decade, went bankrupt earlier this year. CN intends to resume freight hauling, but only from the mainline at Sicamous to Vernon. CN began the legal process to formally abandon the Vernon-Kelowna section in early October. The procedure laid out under CTA regulations provides just 60 days for those interested in running freight on the line to submit a proposal to do so to CN. That's not felt to be enough time for those trying to put together a potentially-complicated business case that the line can still be economically viable. About 300 people work at Kelowna-area firms that have traditionally shipped supplies or finished product by rail. Some are now using trucks, but that's not an option in all cases, which raises the prospect of businesses either shutting down or relocating out of Kelowna. If the line is declared abandoned, CN must offer to sell it first to the federal, provincial and local governments, possibly for use as a long-distance recreation corridor. The price would likely run well into the millions of dollars. A variety of politicians have already met a number of times to discuss the issue. Kelowna-Lake Country MP Ron Cannan has said his preference is for an outcome that includes both the resumption of freight-hauling on the rail line, and protection of a public recreation corridor. "The perfect scenario would be a multi-modal pedestrian-cycling corridor as well as an active rail line," Cannan has said. "For that to happen, the community will need to 'buy in' to the proposal, much like the 'buy a metre' campaign that was run by the Mission Creek Greenway community."