A funny thing happened in Winnipeg:

That's right boys and girls. We just found a brand new paint scheme for the National Steel Car three bay potash covered hopper. 

About 11 months ago it was brought to our attention that Agrium had bought some of the original (Version 1) Canpotex cars and repainted them.

For those of you who are unaware, Agrium is one of the three partners who own Canpotex.

A year ago we had customers send us a photo of this new paint scheme. But we had no proof that more than one car was painted this way. We shared the image with a number of train friends (customers), who all wanted to know, if we would consider doing the car.

While at the Winnipeg Train Show, one of our customers asked why we were not doing the car.

We told him, we had no evidence that more than one car had been repainted this way.

He told us he had seen many cars with the new repainted scheme, and since he worked for Agrium we guessed he might know what he was talking about.

So he put us in touch with those responsible at Agrium for rebranding the fleet and they gave us images of all the cars repainted so far, (there will be almost 400 cars when they complete the rebranding).

We had delayed announcing this car because we didn't have photograhic evidence of more than one car begining repainted with the new graphics, and we wanted to use the correct road numbers.

Well now we have the photo's from Agrium. So since we are just finishing up final changes to the tooling for the car, we will have time to sneak this additional paint scheme in. We will do 2 different sets of 6 for a total of 12 cars.

Here is some backgroud information:

Canpotex, short for Canadian Potash Exporters, is a Canadian potash exporting and marketing firm, incorporated in 1970 and operating since 1972.   Based in Saskatchewan, Canpotex manages the entire Saskatchewan potash exporting industry (excluding Canadian and US sales), including transportation and delivery.

Canpotex is the world's largest exporter of potash, selling over nine million tonnes of potash in 2008,   representing about one-third of global capacity.

Canpotex is wholly owned by its three member producers:

• Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan (PotashCorp) — 54% of potash exported
• The Mosaic Company — 37%
• Agrium — 9%

Agrium Inc. is a major Retail supplier of agricultural products and services in North America, South America and Australia and a wholesale producer and marketer of all three major agricultural nutrients and a supplier of specialty fertilizers in North America.

Agrium was founded as Cominco Fertilizers, Limited (short for Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company Limited) in 1931 and changed its name to Agrium, Incorporated in 1995. Agrium is headquartered in Calgary, Canada. Agrium U.S. Incorporated, a subsidiary company, is based in Denver, Colorado and is the location of Agrium's Retail Business Unit head office. The company is a part-owner of Canpotex, which manages all potash exporting from Saskatchewan.

Agrium owns and operates a potash mine and production facility at Vanscoy, in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Photo by Colin Reinhart

     Agrium was formed to facilitate the reorganization of the fertilizer division of Cominco Ltd (Consolidated Mining & Smelting Company) and the acquisition of the fertilizer assets of Alberta Energy Company in 1993.

     Agium is headquartered in Calgary, Alberta Canada and operates worldwide with a value of over $14 Billion.  Agrium is a partner in "Canpotex". 

     These three bay covered hoppers were leased by Canpotex and as the leases expired, Agrium acquired them.  Thay have been referbished and repainted in Agrium colours.

The first version of this car was developed and built by National Steel Car beginning in 1999. 

dgs