Enterprise rail yard sees ‘bigger picture’ in Hay River line closure

The owner of a rail yard in Enterprise says he understands some of CN’s reasons for closing the line north of his yard to Hay River.

Former Hay River mayor Brad Mapes built the yard several years ago, and that yard has become the central distribution point of fuel and other freight arriving by rail since a wildfire damaged the line to Hay River last year.

CN says it will not repair that stretch of line. In a decision first reported by Cabin Radio, the company said not enough revenue was being generated by Hay River-bound traffic to justify the repair cost, which the NWT government has put at $15 million.

Mapes relies on good relations with CN for his yard’s success and has a vested interest in more freight being directed to his facility.

Even so, he says the closure of the line north to Hay River is not necessarily the crisis some politicians have suggested it is – and may represent a bigger picture of traffic shifting away from the town that would have come to pass with or without wildfire damage to the line.

In the past, fuel and cargo delivered by rail was offloaded in Hay River and either trucked to Yellowknife or barged to communities along Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River.

Some of that freight had been rerouted via Mapes’ yard even before the wildfire hit, he said, and the long-term likelihood is that the Mackenzie Valley Highway – a proposed all-season road running through the Dehcho region to Sahtu communities that currently rely on barges – will further diminish Hay River’s role in resupply.

“The logistics of the North has changed, and it’s only going to change,” Mapes told Cabin Radio on Thursday.

“As the Mackenzie Valley Highway goes, the less and less barging is going to happen.”

There’s currently no timeline for the Mackenzie Valley Highway to be built, nor funding to pay for it. Plans for the highway are undergoing environmental assessment.

With the highway not yet in existence, news of the rail line closure comes in the context of a severely disrupted summer resupply season. The Mackenzie River’s water is too low to support the usual barges, so goods and fuel are being brought in by air, which is generally a much costlier measure.

Wear and tear

In May, Hay River South MLA and communities minister Vince McKay called CN’s decision not to repair the line “truly astonishing” and described it as “neglect.”

McKay suggested the need to truck fuel between Enterprise and Hay River by road would exacerbate “damage to GNWT infrastructure without due compensation.”

Mapes said the situation is more complicated than that, and the presence of his yard has led to far less stress on the highway between Enterprise and Hay River.

He said between fuel deliveries to diamond mines and to Yellowknife, some 400 million litres that used to be sent by rail to Hay River then trucked north is now being taken directly from his Enterprise site along the highway to Yellowknife, fully bypassing the Hay River highway that it used to rely on.

“The wear and tear on the road between Hay River and Enterprise is way down,” he said.

Mapes says he “fought with” CN to get the Hay River line reopened. He says continued freight services to Hay River will help justify the line to his own yard, which is along the route, remaining open. But he questioned the wisdom of some MLAs’ public criticism of CN.

“You’re hammering one of the largest companies in the Canada and one of the most prestigious presidents, and she’s a very good person,” he said, referring to Tracy Robinson, who has led CN since 2022.

“CN had to make a decision.”

Some politicians have suggested that CN, which has annual revenues some seven times higher than those of the GNWT, still has a public duty to ensure the Hay River line is ultimately repaired.

“It’s certainly my hope that CN Rail will take a look at their entire capital envelope and consider whether or not this can find a home in it,” infrastructure minister Caroline Wawzonek was quoted as saying in an interview with the CBC this week.

“Without this, by forcing communities, our community governments to be finding alternatives … it increases costs into communities that are already paying extremely high costs for fuel.”

But CN began the three-year process of discontinuing the Hay River line in May and told Cabin Radio last month it intends to press ahead.

“Customers expressed interest in pursuing other opportunities out of Enterprise, even if Hay River were to be restored,” a spokesperson said by email.

“Following last year’s wildfires, CN reallocated resources from elsewhere on our network to help restore the rail operations to Enterprise in order to meet customer commitments.

“This engagement, along with a cost analysis, revealed that the costs of repair for the lines were not proportional to the volume commitments of customers in the region.”