MONTREAL – Canadian National’s plan to turn the Port of Halifax, Nova Scotia, into the Prince Rupert of the East is gaining traction.
In June CN launched a second pair of intermodal trains that serve Halifax, where terminal operator PSA now owns both container terminals and has made improvements. The port also has expanded berths and added cranes so it can accommodate larger container ships.
“Last month we started a second daily service out of Halifax, and after four weeks we have moved 24% more containers and reduced PSA’s ground count by 27%. I’m very excited about the prospects for Halifax and our partnership with PSA,” Doug MacDonald, CN’s chief marketing officer, said on the railway’s earnings call on Tuesday.
CN has experienced rapid traffic growth in Western Canada for more than a decade, including container traffic through Prince Rupert, British Columbia, and now aims to fill up its underutilized Eastern network.
“The Port of Halifax, which is solely served by CN, has significant opportunities to attract additional container business,” MacDonald says.
Halifax, the first port of call for ships sailing to North America from Europe and Southeast Asia via the Suez Canal, currently operates well below capacity. The gradual shift of production from China to countries in Southeast Asia makes Halifax competitive with West Coast ports for traffic bound for the U.S. Midwest and Eastern Canada. The Port of Halifax also aims to capture containers bound for the Midwest that currently land at the Port of New York and New Jersey and other East Coast ports.
“The port’s capacity is about 1.15 million TEUs, and is currently operating at about 50% of the capacity,” MacDonald says, referring to twenty-foot equivalent units, the common measure of international container volume. “We see significant opportunities to add incremental business over the next few years on a part of CN’s network that has capacity to grow.”
The railway launched trains Q122 and Q123 in June, joining existing trains Q120 and Q121 that serve Atlantic Canada’s busiest containerport. For now, CN is filling out the new trains with merchandise traffic picked up at Moncton, New Brunswick.
“We’re going to try to grow that out to a full train. We can’t do it day one, but we’ve got to start somewhere,” MacDonald says.
CN’s service from the Port of Halifax is the fastest from Eastern Canada to Montreal, Toronto, and the Midwest, MacDonald says. From Halifax departure to container availability inland, the trains offer 26-hour service to Montreal; 35 to Toronto; 59 to Detroit; and 56 to Chicago.
The launch of CN’s second pair of intermodal trains serving Halifax comes amid congestion at U.S. East Coast and West Coast ports and shipper concerns over a potential strike at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the continent’s busiest containerports.
CN does not have volume commitments with steamship lines to move additional traffic through Halifax for the rest of this year or next year. But MacDonald expects the service to grow.
They added 2 trains a day, while most days eliminating 2 others. Note the article said, carrying merchandise traffic. If you work for CN that means, “junk traffic”. It looks better to have 2 q100 series trains, that 1 q100 series and 1 m300 series.
Anyone know where the Q122/123 pairing run to? Are these also Toronto?
Where does CN build the Chicago train Q148? Is that out of Toronto or Montreal?
Is there another pair of Chicago – Eastern Canada intermodals running? Perhaps out of Western Canada?
Ed
And coming up the outside is the Port of St Johns, NB the CP and CSX possible contender and a much shorter rail distnance from Montreal.