Original publish date: 10/24/05
A shortage of rail cars, rising fuel prices and increasing freight rates are slowing the shipment of some pulpwood logs from the eastern Upper Peninsula to mills in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
The delays are putting the value of the logs in jeopardy, timber producers and economic officials say.
"It's steadily gotten worse and worse,'' Tom Buckingham, vice-chairman of the Luce County Economic Development Corporation, told The Mining Journal of Marquette for a recent story. "In the eastern U.P. it is a crisis level for us.
"The wood is rotting.''
Some attribute the rail car shortage to CN, which bought Wisconsin Central Railway in 2001 and junked many of its old log-hauling cars that didn't meet safety standards, the newspaper said.
CN also is using log-hauling cars to carry timber from Canada to the Gulf Coast for rebuilding efforts in the wake of recent hurricanes. There are an estimated 400 CN rail cars available for hauling pulpwood across the Upper Peninsula.
"It's a law of supply and demand and putting the cars where they can be put to their best use,'' said Gloria Combe, director of U.S. government affairs for the rail company.
Rich Brow, owner of the Brow Woodlot in Dollarville, said a company he serves is considering trucking logs to save costs. Brow's woodlot has about 500 rail cars worth of pulpwood stacked and waiting.
But the high price of diesel fuel, however, is making trucking logs to Wisconsin and Minnesota mills more difficult.
"It's not economical to haul pulpwood that far by truck,'' Buckingham said.Minneapolis Star Tribune
