Forty Mile Rail summary
The Forty Mile Rail (FMR) is a shortline railroad that operates in southern Alberta. It’s locally owned by nearly 100 farmers, including Hutterite colonies, and other shareholders. Operations are contracted to the Central Canadian Railway, based out of Winnipeg, Manitoba. As its name implies, the railroad owns 40 miles of former Canadian Pacific Railway, standard-gauge track from Stirling east to Foremost.
History
Local groups in the area began negotiating with Canadian Pacific in the late 2000s on purchasing the line when it was once part of the Stirling Subdivision. In its heyday, the ex-CP subdivision ran east to the hamlet of Manyberries, where it changed over to the Altawan Subdivision before continuing into Saskatchewan. CP began abandonment in the 1990s west to Foremost, until halting all operations on the remaining section by 2006. Forty Mile Rail was founded on Sept. 1, 2016, after a successful acquisition under the Alberta Railway Act. This was followed by service beginning to the Forty Mile and Warner counties.
Operations
Grain and grain products are the main traffic sources in the expanding business. The railroad provides grain producers six locations along the line to ship the crop out of Foremost, Legend, Skiff, Conrad, Wrentham, and Judson. Pulse crops, including wheat, barley, oats and dry field peas, has also picked up with local producers along with grain handling. The railroad’s affiliated company, Southern Grain Exchange Limited, oversees the grain elevators in Foremost. In Autumn 2018, Forty Mile Rail was selected to transport Vestas 3.6-megawatt windmill turbine components for installation. Shipments from Judson Flats to the Capital Power’s Whitla Wind Farm in Foremost started in May 2019. Rail storage has become the latest offering of various products for windmills, agriculture, chemicals, fertilizers, and on-site railcar cleaning.
The railroad obtained an EMD GP9 diesel locomotive when Alberta Transportation gave the go-ahead for the FMR to proceed with its shortline application in 2016. By 2019, two EMD GP40s serve as the motive power for the operation.
Forty Mile Rail interchanges with the Canadian Pacific at Stirling where freight cars are picked up and dropped off between the two railroads.
Read more about the Forty Mile Rail in Trains‘ April 2021 issue.
