Cleveland and Great Lakes Ports want Container Traffic?

[Brooklyn Trolley Dodger]

I saw this in the Columbus Dispatch but I dont see how they can make this work when ships are getting bigger and trains are faster?  Largest Great lakes grain boat is 1000 feet but lakes cargo freighter is much smaller..

[Brooklyn Trolley Dodger]

http://www.edrgroup.com/ted2006/w12_Paper_Bischak_Greg_Port_of_Pittsburgh_Container.pdf

 Oops spoke too soon...Baton Rouge is doing this already

[Dakguy201]

Both the Great Lakes idea and the Ohio/Mississippi Rivers idea strike me as improbable.

First, oceangoing ships entry to the Great Lakes is limited by the size constraints of the St Lawrence Seaway.  The locks are 740 feet long by 78 feet wide by 30 feet deep.  The Seaway itself is usually maintained with channel depths around 30 feet.  The ships that can qualify are referred to as "Seaway-max"; so some 90% of the worlds freighters are disqualified from entry, probably including nearly all current container ships. 

My concept of the type of shipper utilizing containers is a low bulk, high value product producer.  To this type of shipper time is money, quite literally as someone is financing the value of the goods while they are intransit.  I don't know exactly what barge transit time is from New Orleans to Pittsburgh is, but I'd be reasonably certain we're talking weeks, not days as is the case by railroad or truck.  To the extent that intermediate stops to load-unload are necessary, additional time will be needed.

 

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Time IS Money, and this is another reason why containership operators don't operate into the Great Lakes.  Aside from size constraints, it takes too much time to get a ship to or from Toronto, Cleveland, Chicago, etc. compared to Halifax, New York/New Jersey or other coastal ports.

[train18393]

Not to mention the Welland Canal in Canada that gets the ships past the Niagra Falls into the upper Great Lakes. It is only 25 feet deep, but a little bit longer and wider. They also have a height above waterline restriction of 116.5 feet due to one bridge that does not open. The St Lawrence and the Welland are both much smaller than the Panama Canal and there is much talk of making the Panama larger for todays Ships. I would think there would be now way to do this with ships unless the price of petrol comes down, or the demand for containers gets much smaller.

The other thought is they could make relativly small ships that were fast so time sensitive cargo could be transported, say in ships 700 feet long with a draft of less than 25 feet. I don't see that happening because of the distance involved and the speed of ships. Especially if the ship came from the Pacific. From Europe it would be much more likely.

Paul

Dayton and Mad River (model) RR  

[Convicted One]

I'm sure that there would be some scoundrel out there willing to promise that the only obstacle between them and making this a functional  reality is the need for an unfettered access to taxpayer funding, and I'm equally sure that there are enough gullible buffoons out there ready to believe them. The only question remaining  would be if Mr Schieffer is truly interested in entering the great lakes shipping business.

[beaulieu]

Not all container products are high value, a fair amount is at best medium value. Right now a fair amount of Soybeans and Seed Corn is being exported in containers, as is scrap metal. In Europe container barges are common on the Rhine River. However the time taken to lock up and down the St. Lawrence Seaway, along with the winter closure has killed every attempt so far to create container service on the Great Lakes. There used to be a solitary container crane at Duluth, it made less than 10 revenue lifts before being sold and removed.

Look here for a small picture and specifications 

European Container Barge 

[Brooklyn Trolley Dodger]

Shaver Tugsboats out of Portland (Multi-Million Doller company that has no website?)

Runs tugs and barges up and down the Columbia River...

 Some markets are too small to justify a container yard...The Next big thing in the Great Lakes is Barge Boat Combos where they are trying to get around the Seamans Union (Steelworkers) contracts(ore boats) by paying tug and barge rates to seaman..The issue here is with the Minnisota Ore Mines being played out there is going to be a bunch of Idle Ore boats waiting for work.

[Clutch Cargo]

Stick to trains.

It is obvious you don`t know Jack about sea cargo/. 

[beaulieu]

 

 Some markets are too small to justify a container yard...The Next big thing in the Great Lakes is Barge Boat Combos where they are trying to get around the Seamans Union (Steelworkers) contracts(ore boats) by paying tug and barge rates to seaman..The issue here is with the Minnisota Ore Mines being played out there is going to be a bunch of Idle Ore boats waiting for work.

The rise of Tug-Barge Combos (ATB or ITB) is due to quirks in the manning regulations and also to it being a cheaper method to effectively reengine an older laker. More recently the regulations for conventional lakers have been adjusted reducing the manning advantage of ATBs over conventional lakers. Depletion of the Mesabi Ore Reserves are not imminent. Extraction rates are not that high, and a new mine on the site of the old Butler Taconite operation looks likely to become a reality. Empire Mine on the Marquette Range in the Youpee doesn't have many years left, not because the reserves are gone, but rather because the Mine's owner, Cleveland-Cliffs, reduced the stripping as an economy measure during a soft period in the '90s.  Now with demand running higher it is too expensive to strip the overburden off parts of that Mine's reserve.

[tomnoy3]

The only container traffic that the twin ports will really see is double stacks on the CN going from the port of Prince Rupert or Vancouver to Chicago. 

[snagletooth]

Time IS Money, and this is another reason why containership operators don't operate into the Great Lakes.  Aside from size constraints, it takes too much time to get a ship to or from Toronto, Cleveland, Chicago, etc. compared to Halifax, New York/New Jersey or other coastal ports.

They may get it there faster, but then it takes forever to get it out of the port! It isn't all that unusual for a container to sit for week or two before it's released by (it's on the tip of my tongue,) the agency responsible for going thru international shipments, then the trucking co. got to pay (and the checks got to clear) storage. Then get a trucker there to get it out. 1-3 weeks is normal. I delivered "hot" containers to Phiily and Newark for a boat that wasn't coming to pick-up for nearly a month. Just like airlines , they often overbook knowing some just aren't going to make on time, then figure how to load it when the time comes. Inland barge container service isn't new. They used to run them down to New Orleans. Didn't last long, thought. Service was great, but reloading  in congested New orleans got expensive and time consuming at the port.

[StillGrande]

Not all the container ships out there are the mega ships which ply the Atlantic and Pacific.  There are quite a number that move coastally, or even in river traffic.  Some are the old style with their own, onboard lift cranes.  We even occasionally see container traffic by ship in Alexandria, right across the river from DC.  There is even occasionally cruise ship traffic up here too, though it is rarer than container traffic.  I imagine Great Lakes traffic would be confined to ports on the lakes.  With little leaking out down the St. Lawrence.  Might be a viable alternative for some items, particularly with truck connections at both ends. 

[StillGrande]

This also reminds me that there was a lot of noise being made of container shipping up and down the Mississippi and other navigable rivers.  There was an outfit that was setting up Roll-on, Roll off trailer/barge service too.  Don't get hung up on size.  If the short lines did, they wouldn't exist, or be successful in their own class. 

[beaulieu]

It all comes down to costs. For the Great Lakes the winter closure is the killer.  On the Mississippi River distances are short with dispersed customers and good road connections. In the European situation, they are blessed with year-round navigation on the Rhine, no locks other than a single lock to reach the upper harbor at Basel Switzerland, and European Land use restrictions that concentrate development more than happens in the US. All of which helps container transportation on the Rhine. They also have large populated areas, at least partially isolated by large bodies of water, Ireland, the UK, and Scandanavia, which is favorable to "Shortsea" shipping in smaller "feeder" containerships. None of these apply here, with the exception of Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico, and only Puerto Rico has a large amount of people.