G3 Carmangay secures top elevator award

By Ry Clarke - Lethbridge Herald Local Journalism Initiative Reporter on December 2, 2022.

Submitted photo The G3 Carmangay grain elevator has received the Elevator of the Year award from CP Rail for demonstrating efficient railcar loading and a commitment to safety.

The G3 Carmangay grain elevator has received the Elevator of the Year award from CP Rail for the third time for demonstrating efficient railcar loading and a strong commitment to safety.

G3 Carmangay received the award last month. CP presents this annually to grain elevators that achieve high volumes from a single loading point while operating in an efficient and safe manner.

“It is a nice honour, it is a great award for all of the hard work that staff puts into achieving this,” said Randy Spetz, general manager for G3. “We are one of the highest volume facilities (CP) has in their whole system in Western Canada. We moved the most amount of grain safely though the system.”

The award shows the value CP places on G3 and the recognition towards their job.

“It proves they value our value proposition that we have built out this network of high efficiency facilities that are able to move grain quickly,” said Peter Chura, communications specialist for G3. “Typically, a facility like G3 Carmangay would move grain in from trucks, put it on trains and move it out. But in order to help out the livestock industry with the feed that they needed, they essentially ran the elevator in reverse, proving that they are able to move the grain in all kinds of different circumstances.”

With innovation, G3 is able to accommodate when droughts limit the production of animal feed.

“Our ability to do what we did and change is going to pay dividends going forward. We are going to see more efficiency,” said Spetz. “With freight restrictions, I think this is going to be more prevalent going forward than it has been in the past. We could see this, if rates continue to go the way it is, becoming more of a part of our business going forward.”

With G3’s high-efficiency loop track facility setting new standards for grain moving, receiving the Elevator of the Year award helps showcase the innovation they achieve.

“It is a great illustration of how our modern network of facilities is able to move grain quickly,” said Chura. “We were able to bring grain in and we are really glad we were able to put our expertise and our hard work to use.”