I was fooled at first, but most of this business will not be coming in on ships.
Mechanical Department "No no that's fine shove that 20 pound set all around the yard... those shoes aren't hell and a half to change..."
The Missabe Road: Safety First
beaulieuAnd the first containers into Duluth for transfer to truck are loads of Flaxboard for Lexington Door in Brainerd, MN. The containers are from Belgium and were transfered to rail at the Port of Montreal. CP managed to get their fingers in the pie as they service the Clure Marine Terminal at the Port of Duluth.
At first I thought they might have come through here - CSX is trying to build a container business on the line, running out of Valleyfield, QC. The story said they came across on CN, though...
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
And the first containers into Duluth for transfer to truck are loads of Flaxboard for Lexington Door in Brainerd, MN. The containers are from Belgium and were transfered to rail at the Port of Montreal. CP managed to get their fingers in the pie as they service the Clure Marine Terminal at the Port of Duluth.
Containers
kgbw49 Maybe wood pellets for European power plants for shipment out of NOLA, Mobile or Halifax?
Maybe wood pellets for European power plants for shipment out of NOLA, Mobile or Halifax?
Nah the wood pellets for Drax Power Station originate in northern Louisiana and are shipped via the Port of Baton Rouge.
Drax Biomass
Roger the grain at Chippewa Falls. There is a lot of grain within an hour's drive of Chippewa Falls in all directions. As to Duluth grain opportunities, there is some grain farming south of Hinckley MN but not a lot. I can see consumer goods coming off stack cars at Duluth and ending up rolling down I-35 to Target distribution in the Twin Cities. What heads back up to Duluth and out of Rice's Point on CN is puzzling. It will be interesting to see what develops.
The Port of Cleveland has an agreement that sees some containers come from Europe on the decks of bulk freighters, but it is small beans.
Grain in containers tends to be specialty crops where the customer buys from one farmer who guarantees the quality and so doesn't want his grain mixed at an elevator. CN does fill containers with grain at Chippewa Falls.
I actually think it might be a play for Twin Cities container traffic to-from Prince Rupert in particular.
There is not a lot of grain "close" to the Twin Ports, so I am not sure they are going to put grain into the containers as a backhaul unless it is drayed up from probably central Minnesota.
Right now CN container traffic from the Twin Cities ends up for the most part at Chippewa Falls, but it is probably a horse apiece to dray containters up to Duluth from the Twin Cities.
CN does reach the Twin Cities from Duluth but it is pretty much "two sides of a triangle" via the wye at Owen WI, but CN does not have much of an intermodal presence in the Twin Cities.
The Twin Cities Metropolitan Statistical Area has about 3.9 million people and is the 14th largest population center in the US, but CN's presence is pretty minimal.
Saw another article elsewhere - this sounds like it will be rail to truck at first and eventually maybe truck to rail. Guessing traffic that was previously offloaded at Chicago and then hauled north/north west.
Here's the link to elsewhere:http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/business/shipping/4241372-cn-duluth-cargo-connect-announce-container-terminal-intermodal
Dan
Victrola1 Is there much container traffic on the great lakes?
Is there much container traffic on the great lakes?
I don't think I've ever seen any on the St Lawrence River.
I would wonder what kind of traffic they would handle. Certainly time can't be an issue, as the ship transit time from Lake Superior to, say, Montreal would be easily covered by an all-rail routing in much less time.
DULUTH, Minn. – Canadian National and Duluth Cargo Connect have established a new alliance for the first rail-served intermodal container port in the Twin Ports of Duluth and Superior, Wis. Duluth Cargo Connect, a working partnership of the Dul...
http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2017/03/28-cn-partners-establish-first-intermodal-container-terminal-in-twin-ports
Brian Schmidt, Editor, Classic Trains magazine
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