By the 1960s, it had become apparent that various economic factors, including competition and inflation, had led to Canadian railway companies losing increasingly larger sums of money handling grain.
Furthermore, capital investments into branch line infrastructure and rolling stock was being increasingly neglected as to minimise costs, but this approach led to a long-term decline in the ability of the railways to support the demands of the agricultural sector.
[1] Thus, even though large scale sales had been lined up with export customers such as China and Russia, by the late 1960s, it was clear that the railways were struggling to fulfil them satisfactorily.
Throughout the 1970s, various entities opted to purchase new rolling stock for grain trains; over a 20 year period, nearly 13,500 hopper cars would be procured via this approach.
[7] During early 2017, as part of the corporation's winding down, the nearly 1,000 hopper cars in its inventory were put up for sale; priority was given to the 13 shortline operators based in Saskatchewan.