The four-year old rail line company called Red Coat Road and Rail is a win-win situation for everybody, said a director and one of the founders. "So far, so good," said producer Lonny McKague of Ogema.

McKague said the company is a success story, although it started under fairly adverse conditions. It doesn't make a large profit but has operated in the black every year since it was started, he said.

Red Coat is a 114-km rail line running from Pangman to Assiniboia, through five rural municipalities, bought from CP Rail by four original shareholders for $1 million.

The community-owned company saves money for the farmers who use it, has contributed $200,000 to local municipal education and property taxes over its lifetime, and has left, at minimum, another $200,000 in the communities it serves, said McKague.

He believes the net benefit for the area has been over half a million dollars since the company opened.

That financial contribution doesn't include all the spin-off benefits each time the farmers come to town for grain business and stop to buy groceries or some other goods in their local communities, he said.

It also doesn't include the environmental benefit gained from moving grain by rail rather than on the province's highways.

"That probably helps even the taxpayers in Weyburn," he said. McKague quotes CP Rail figures showing rail traffic is 2.5 times more energy efficient than truck traffic.

About 170 shareholders use the line a lot and another 140 farmers use it periodically, he said. Farmers don't necessarily make more money using Red Coat, but they save money and reduce their operating costs, said McKague.

"We save $1,000 per car per person. We operate that much cheaper."

"We've been running on average about 200 cars a year, with a little less last year because of the smaller crop. But we've been steadily increasing every year and getting a larger portion of the local crop every year."

All the farmers from Radville to Assiniboia theoretically could use the producer-owned line but the company would like to move about 550 cars every year, he said. At that point, he said it would be highly profitable.

McKague said he doesn't know if the company will last forever but right now it's a very low-risk investment.

"The net value (of the assets) is increasing so we would make money even if it failed," he said. "But we didn't buy it to sell it."

The shareholders are emotionally involved in their community and want to do some good with it, he said.