The Western Grains Research Foundation (WGRF) is the big winner when the railways make too much money.

The non-profit organization will receive about $4.65 million as a result of both CN and CP Rail exceeding their Maximum Revenue Entitlements (MRE) for the 2015/16 crop year.

WGRF Executive Director Garth Patterson says the money collected goes into an endowment fund, which is used to support crop research.

"Last year we invested approximately $19 million into crop research and of that, approximately $7 million was from the endowment fund," he explained. "We have other sources of revenue including the wheat and barley checkoffs, those will be ending on July 31, 2017."

Patterson notes the group also receives over a million dollars a year in royalty revenue from the commercialization of wheat and barley varieties.

He says that since the Canadian Transportation Agency put the rule in place in 2005, WGRF has received about $96 million.

WGRF includes board member farmers from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia.