Ag news from 25 years ago
A headline of a March 11, 1998 article in The Clarion read: Area farmers band together to show rail line is needed. Here are some excerpts from the article.
Farmers from across West Central Saskatchewan gathered in Eatonia and Laporte to send a message to the grain companies and railways.
One day late, Canadian National finally brought in 60 cars to the Eatonia area to unload local elevators and granaries.
Through their own efforts, and in conjunction with West Central Road and Rail, farmers along rail line 47.02 (which runs through Mantario, Laporte, and Eatonia) loaded approximately 33 producer cars on Friday.
The tiny community of Laporte was bustling with activity as 18 grain cars, as well as some of the six cars originally scheduled to be loaded in neighbouring Mantario, were loaded by farmers from across the district.
Some producers traveled almost 100 miles to Laporte in their grain trucks to help their fellow farmers load the producer cars.
“The bottom line is that we want to save our rail line,” explained Kirk Ritalin, a farmer who came from Elrose to help out. “The object is to get the grain off the road and on to the track.”
“It’s pretty evident that the grain companies and the railroads aren’t going to provide us with the service,” added Plato area farmer Doug Bone who was one of the other 40 farmers who came from the Eston area to help out.
“There’s a real spirit of cooperation here today and I think that will be important when we want to obtain the line for ourselves.”
Meanwhile local farmers said they were overwhelmed by the support in the community.
“We decided to do this to make a point to the railroads and the grain companies,” explained Laporte area farmer Paul Stevens whose family farm loaded four producer cars. “But it would have taken forever to do this ourselves. The help from people we don’t even know is amazing.”
“In small towns everyone sticks together and is willing to help out,” explained Eatonia area farmer Derek Nunweiler while helping a friend unload a car in Eatonia. “This is just another example of that.”
Laporte area farmer Ray Cooper said the manual loading of producer cars in the community proved the viability of the rail line.
West Central Road and Rail, a coalition of local farmers and business people concerned about the loss of the rail line, said the importance of Friday’s event was the strong message it sent.
“The message is as much to ourselves, as to the governments, grain companies, and railroads, that this line is important,” explained Bill Woods, an Eston area farmer and WCRR’s secretary.