Getty Images file photo

If and when the Ring of Fire mining development takes off, Ontario Northland is ready to get the wheels rolling and show them how to run a railway.

That was the message from Ontario Northland president and CEO Corina Moore, who spoke in Timmins earlier this month at the Federation of Northern Municipalities conference.

Moore gave municipal leaders an update on the provincially owned transportation company, which provides rail freight service, limited rail passenger service and bus passenger service in northeastern Ontario.

The Ring of Fire is a mining prospect located near Webequie and McFaulds Lake about 600 kilometres northwest of Timmins. The venture is identified mainly as a chromite project, valued in the tens of billions of dollars. There are huge deposits of other metals there too, but so far none of the significant mining companies involved has moved forward with any sort of a mining operation because market prices are too low. KWG Resources Inc. and Noront Resources are the main players in the project.

KWG, a Canadian mining exploration company, has worked out a deal with China Railway First Survey and Design Institute (FSDI) for a feasibility study on a railway corridor into the project. 

In the meantime, Noront, also a Canadian firm, is pushing the idea of creating a year-round, all-season road into the Ring of Fire area, which would at the same time connect many of the isolated First Nations communities located nearby.

Moore said there is no firm indication, one way or the other, what is going to happen.

“We are repeatedly asked about the Ring of Fire. I want to be clear on this. We do not make the decision of whether the Ring of Fire is going to be supported by rail or by road.

However, if it is supported by rail we want people to know of our capabilities in rail,” said Moore.

She said Ontario Northland has already had a meeting with FDSI China Railway to discuss what options might be considered.

“Our meeting was about our capabilities should that be the way to the Ring of Fire at some point in the future,” said Moore. “Our capabilities were highlighted that we can provide and support and operate a railway. We can provide the rail traffic control because that’s what we do out of our Englehart station for our railway. We can maintain the fleet, because that’s what we do in Cochrane,” Moore explained.

“We want to make sure that we’re highlighting to whoever wants to listen that we are a rail organization and we can support whatever needs happen to occur in the future with regards to the Ring of Fire.”

In the meantime, Moore said Ontario Northland is gradually improving in the fields of marketing, communication, technology and even employee relations.

By example she mentioned that in the past fiscal year, the company saved $4 million in operational spending, something that was a first for Ontario Northland she said.

Another important component for the company, said Moore, will be a performance measurement strategy. 

Moore said she is confident that Ontario Northland employees and their work will stand up to the challenge.

“I am not sure we’ve done a good job of highlighting that to the province and that’s what our focus is going to be,” she said, adding that she is confident she can prove to Queen’s Park that Ontario Northland is just as good as any other transportation agency.

“This is how we compare to other agencies. This is how we compare to other transportation companies. What we are already finding is that we are on par or better in terms of cost recovery than any other bus agency or bus transportation solution in North America that I can find,” Moore added.

Among the improvements in the works said Moore is technological change, something that fell aside a few years ago when the province was pushing for the divestment of Ontario Northland Transportation Commission.

“We were stagnant. We needed to jumpstart the organization and that’s what has happened in the last year, and it comes in all forms including some major technology upgrades that are going to enhance our customer service, as well as allow us to do things more efficiently,” said Moore.

She said this includes improvements in accounting, online ticketing for bus coach passengers and a reservation system for Polar Bear Express customers.

She added that Northerners will also soon be seeing a much improved service on the Polar Bear Express, which will have a number of new and newly refurbished passenger cars coming online in the next three years.

She added that Ontario Northland is working on stepping up its role in Cochrane by moving the locomotive maintenance shop to that community. Moore said this would grow the business in Cochrane as well as creating more room in the North Bay maintenance shop for rail car renovation contracts.