"Grantees include a planning grant for a partnership led by the Port of St. Louis, the Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative, the Inland River Port & Terminal Association, and the Upper Mississippi River Basin Association to build the container economy for the Mississippi River and work with freight forwarders to offer the Mississippi River as a container option."
http://www.americascentralport.com/news/
What affect on rail shipping containers on barges?
Victrola1 "Grantees include a planning grant for a partnership led by the Port of St. Louis, the Mississippi River Cities & Towns Initiative, the Inland River Port & Terminal Association, and the Upper Mississippi River Basin Association to build the container economy for the Mississippi River and work with freight forwarders to offer the Mississippi River as a container option." http://www.americascentralport.com/news/ What affect on rail shipping containers on barges?
Interesting take on what could be called an 'OLD" idea... Growing up in Memphis,Tenn. I remember some trips dowin to the Downtown area and the adjacent 'landing areas' on the riverfront. Not only was that area frequented by passenger trains along the ICRR's parallel line to access Central Station, There was a coal transload facility (dissappeared in the middle 1950's) and as well there was the automobile barge loading activities ( mostly on the week-ends, as I remember). Ford Motor Co had a plant and they would bring hundreds of cars to park on the cobblestones of the riverfron and then move them onto barges for river transport. Those barges were mostly, double-decked affairs, onto which the cars were driven, by loading crews.
To move intermodal containers by barge, is first going to require, what has the potential to be some pretty expensive infrastructure (Cranes, landings/docks, and most likely new accesses by road or rail(?). The next problem is the normal rising and falling of the river,itself. Complicated by the distance between the surface of the river, and the clearance under bridges. Not to mention the seasonal falling of the river and issues of the depth of navigation channels.
The movement of barges and intermodal containers by barge, sort of smacks of politicans, with their desires to create a 'pie in the sky' (or maybe, a new 'Mississippi Mud Cake' recipe) to feed on the 'Federal Treasury'.
Transloading containers from ship to barge is another complication that appears not to have been considered.
Functions: Administered the Transportation Act of 1920 (41 Stat. 456), February 28, 1920, as amended, and the inland water transportation facilities acquired by the United States under the Federal Control Act (40 Stat. 451), March 21, 1918. Coordinated rail and water transportation. Operated barge lines on the Mississippi, Missouri, and Warrior Rivers; and the Warrior River Terminal Company short-rail line. Conducted investigations of waterway traffic and equipment. Constructed water terminals.
Abolished: By the act repealing the Inland Waterways Corporation Act (77 Stat. 81), July 19, 1963.
https://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/091.html
When the terminal was completed from two to six barges could be unloaded at one time. Two tow motors, hauling from one to five five of the 30 two-ton loading and unloading trucks were used for the lighter loads. Heavier freight was moved by an eighteen-ton crane and a specially designed runway south of the terminal.
http://www.encyclopediadubuque.org/index.php?title=FEDERAL_BARGE_LINE
The Fededal Barge Line built freight houses at various points along the rivers. Barging freight that normally would ship in box cars was not a success. LTL trucking companies did move into such freight houses to handle freight they solicitied.
Containers would alleviate tow motors moving pallets on and off docks.
Containers on barges can not compete with transit time by truck. Will rail transit times be sufficently less than barge to compete?
This has been a proposal for decades. However, it will only happen when tax dollars pay for the development. Bulk shippers are happy to build their own small docks when they load many barges, but a few containers won't do it. Here is a general coverage of why...
[1] River transportation is cheaper due to the volume advantage and a lack of property taxes and operating costs. A barge can handle 1500 tons south of St. Louis, 2200 tons north of there. There are about 15 barges a tow to the north and 40 or so to the south.
[2] River is slow at 5-10mph when moving. This will add days to the movement. This is important when cash flow is considered. For the railroads, the product would probably have already been delivered, distributed to the customers, and used, thus cash already in hand.
[3] Many river terminals (ports) are owned and paid for through a mix of public-private investments. Rail terminals are mostly private. This can be used as an advantage for either mode.
[4] River (great Lakes and ocean also) access is very limited. Besides the Mississippi River system (with Missouri, Ohio, Arkansas, and Tennessee), the only other major systems are the Hudson and Columbia River networks, which include canals to extend their reach. They are pretty short so truck really gets into the competitive mix also. To reach the major intermodal hub of Chicago, it would take a week up the Mississippi River from New Orleans, then the Illinois River and canal network to Chicago. Other major inland intermodal hubs such as Atlanta and Ft. Worth have no river option.
[5] Some look at the water option as a way to force lower rail rates and to justify port development. The water infrastructure is generally government maintained, thus a way to maintain government careers.
[6] River container movements will also add something that few barge companies have to deal with - regulations. Less than 10% of river freight is currently regulated as when 3 or fewer commodities move on a barge, it is not rate regulated. Also, most bulk commodities are exempt. Moving a barge of containers would suddenly add regulatory oversight on rates and operations, certainly a negative for many of the barge carriers. However, you could probably expect a movement to make containers fall under the current practices to allow barges to enter the market.
Another waste of your tax dollars to employ consultants and feed the port porkers.
The only place that I KNOW barge containerization was/is practiced is the Columbia/Snake Rivers between Portland Oregon and Lewiston ID. Traffic is lentils and paper from Lewiston ID. Is about a 300 mile haul and truck competitive. I do not know modal split, but suspect trucks dominate due to speed and flexibility and because Portland is becoming less competitive every year due to depth restirictions of the Lower Columbia (90 miles or so) and the Columbia Bar, neither of which trouble LA, Oakland, Tacoma, Seattle, Vancouver BC or Prince Rupert BC.
The real business on the Columbia is export wheat to Portland, Vancouver WA, Kalama WA, and Longview WA. Navagation on the Snake killed the once relatively dense network of grain lines in the Palouse region of Eastern Washington. Now the State is trying to keep the rail remnants alive.
Mac McCulloch
CSSHEGEWISCH Transloading containers from ship to barge is another complication that appears not to have been considered.
Sam, you REALLY need to get out more, or maybe learn to Google. LASH barges? Never had anything to do with intermodal containers.
It is no longer available:
On 15 December 2007, the Rhine Forest,[3] ex-Bilderdijk of the Holland-Amerika Line, entered the Port of Rotterdam for the last time, prior to being withdrawn from service because of low utilization on the New Orleans/Rotterdam route. It is a sister ship of the MS München. The LASH lighter with registration p. CG 6013 was donated to De Binnenvaart, an inland-shipping museum in Dordrecht, where it is now part of an exhibit.
Oh,and the Munchen? Lost with all hands from one big wave in the North Atlantic. A LASH vessel was like a bathtub full of shoeboxes, a disaster waiting to happen. I've loaded quite a few.
All those problems you cite with containers on barges? Not much.
The website says Mobile. Looks like Savannah to me. Which would mean that it happens at at least 2 ports. There is no clearance problem, as you can see they are loaded 3 high in an open hopper barge.
Containers are extensively loaded with grain for the return trip to China in the midwest. Then transported to the West coast by rail and thence to China. This traffic can and will go to the Gulf coast for loading on vessels that will passage the Panama canal to China.
The Gullf coast river system serves 23 states when the intracoastal waterway is included. I would not call that "limited".
The Columbia/Snake system is on thin ice as federal courts have ordered that salmon migration be restored or take out 5 dams. Not a factor.
Return containers of grain can come down river just as loose grain does. About 30% of outbound tonnage between Nola and Baton Rouge is loaded miidstream. So fancy facilities not a problem, as you can see in the photo.
Obviously grain return loads can travel at any pace to the south mississippi ports and also Mobile, Gulfport, Pascagoula, and the Houston area. Time is not a factor as long as it is there for loading.
I lived in the Savannah area in the late 70s and early 80s. Container on barge traffic was common even then.
Note the additional economic issue that Mr. Midget has introduced -- I think it is highly significant in this discussion.
There is a severe imbalance in loaded container volume vs. available backhaul, which led to a large number of containers being stored idle at a number of points. Memphis is one. These are what would be loaded with grain and handled via intermodal equipment rather than bulk transfer from inland American points to China, and it could be argued that providing appropriate overhead container transfer from rail to barge could be done relatively easily were an adequate traffic volume over an adequate time to justify the capital investment and maintenance. It's not rocket science to transfer loaded-out or cubed-out containers quickly even if their contents are comparatively subject to shifting in transit ... or to dun grain loads effectively and cheaply.
The perceived competition here would be from railroads taking the same containerized traffic in 'backhaul' in lanes that have significant asymmetry between stack-consist loaded and unloaded directions, to ports that have a net cheaper transit cost to China. There, too, I suspect there can be lucrative niche operations for astute marketers and operations people.
We haven't had the discussion about transload costs vs. proven economies of container transshipment, or use of containers for break-bulk transfer inbound to multiple points. I can easily figure out a range of reasons why container-on-barge would be a 'preferred' water mode; the issue is more whether railroad advantages in competition are as 'real' as they were 150 years ago... or, again, whether good marketing and service can make a place for water container service that railroads can't or won't meet.
RME,
As I understand your hypothesis, you believe there are a mess of steamship containers sitting empty in and around Memphis TN. I suspect there are more loads into Memphis than out so will accept that starting point.
What are you planning to ship from Memphis and to where? I live in the Memphis area and do not see much agricultural production nearby. Modest, comparitively, volumes of cotton are grown in the delta, and Stugart Arkansas calls itself the rice capital of the world. The delta is about 400 miles from NOLA. I suspect export cotton moves truck to NOLA, then ship. If to China, then Panama Canal. It makes less than no sense to truck cotton 100 miles the wrong way to Memphis, incur the loading cost, barge it to NOLA and then transload to another chassis for movement around the port.
The rice tends to move to the river and downstream by bulk barge. Rail may be competitive at some distance from the river where there are truck, transload, and barge costs vs. direct rail. Would be interesting to see market share data. For Identity Preserved rice, if such there be, the truck from NOLA plan is probably the default. In short I do not see a market for river container service over Memphis.
There may be a market for IP rice by rail in containers to the West Coast. This would soak up some of the empty containers we think are at Memphis. UP would have the dray advantage over BNSF since their terminal is in Ark. and trucks would take about an extra hour per trip, say $150-200 per container disadvantage to BNSF.
Compared to over NOLA, rail container rice would be quicker to west coast and eliminate a lot of steamship miles. I am sure both UP and BNSF know what rate they would have to make to get the business. I do not know what they have chosen to do and what traffic they actually handle. If this is a real business I would look to a bulk rail to SS container transload in the LA area which would probably be the lowest total cost system given enough volume.
I would not invest in a river transload for containers in the Memphis area.
Mac
"Sam, you REALLY need to get out more, or maybe learn to Google. LASH barges? Never had anything to do with intermodal containers."
Never really meant to say the LASH System was 'Intermodal'. They only came possibly 'close', when they were lifted onto and off their shipboard carrier. I dealt with the unloading of some of them at the Port of Memphis piers. As stated they were basicly 'containers' that were loaded in Europe and transported to be unloaded in US. The ones we dealt with at Memphis came off their ships around New Orleans; and were put into upriver tows. We received various steel products (fencing,nails, farm emplement parts) farm tractors. I think, they(LASH barges) were reloaded with bulk agricultural products ( Soy,corn, cotton seed) for their return voyages.
I saw some containers ( 20'TEU's) loaded for overseas shipment with bulk ag products. The shipper would stand the container on its front end, and load through the doors. they would close, and seal the doors, and return the container to its normal horizontal position for shipping.
A number of the smaller river cities have been passed over for intermodal terminals
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