At a time when the pipeline industry is facing opposition to new projects, rail is surging. In the span of months, executives who had never considered moving oil by train are not just tinkering with rail shipments, but embracing them. While these shipments are small for now, by one estimate rail could be carrying 100,000 barrels a day out of Canada by next year; others have suggested more than 75,000 barrels a day is already moving by train.

Despite the St. Lawrence Seaway being a seasonal inland waterway, the maritime route provides an essential transportation service insofar as the economical movement of bulk freight is concerned. While extended length ships of 1200-feet sail the Upper Great Lakes of Lakes Michigan, Superior, Huron and Erie, only Seaway-max ships of 600-feet length sail into Lake Ontario.

Newgistics, a provider of small-parcel delivery, returns-management and freight-shipping services, is now offering delivery and return between the U.S. and Canada.

On any given week, three to seven CP Rail trains laden with crude oil from the North Dakota Bakken field whisk across North America, bypassing the pipeline bottlenecks in mid-continent that are depressing oil prices and unaffected by the noise in Washington, D.C., that is holding back the Keystone XL pipeline.