Searsport Branch

pjb wrote:
The statement that Halifax loses money on container operations is wrong.
Not even by eliminating all the ancillary benefits (which monetarily exceeds
all the direct income from handling the cargo by a factor of 10+, according
to the provincial government' s accounting) do you derive a loss: from the cost of,
and income from, the direct stevedoring operations.
I believe that you have been fed a "bill of goods", by some environmental
or other NIMBY persons, that desire to stop any economic development.
These anti-development types from the upper classes have long been a
burden to the region, and have caused generations of people , such as
myself to go elsewhere to achieve a decent standard of living for
myself and family.
If you wish to point out that Searsport offers less , locationwise, than its
regional competitors - that is a propositon that is defencible from a
rational economic point of view. Trotting out lies about other competitive
ports does not serve any discussion about the subject well.
Good-Luck,PJB

The fact the largest 3 container terminals closest to Searsport are in a decline has much to do with this subject

If you must know by trade I am a longshoreman so my facts are far from BS I just can't see how the Maine government could spend millions on a terminal that has no realistic chance,to be honest in todays world the container business is cut throat and many terminals operate at under capacity such as Saint John.

With the forest products industry all but dead what does Searsport have to export? most shipping lines would see Eastport as a prefered port of call as the warves already exist and the lanes are constantly dredged none the less container handeling equipment much be purchased in either port to operate

It's all fine to say Eastport would be the most logical port of call, BUT there isn't exactly any viable rail connection there. The rail branch is gone, remember? Searsport and outlying areas COULD be way more utilized than they currently are. The Sears Island plan has been backed by rail AND environmental concerns. A port with rail or nearby rail in place looks a lot more inviting.

I don't think Murray is saying that anything should be built at Eastport; just that it has a head start on Searport/Sears Island. Right now, Eastport is essentially a one-trick pony: Export woodpulp. Portland's container business

The question remains: Considering that Maine is sandwiched between established, underutilized container terminals, how could development be justified?

Very interesting study. I would think that the State of ME, MM&A and CP would be the biggest proponents of developing Searsport for container traffic since CN has Halifax and MM&A wouldn't want to short-haul themselves to interchange with Pan Am. A couple of points from my perspective: First, the study mentions the importance of the inland portion of the transportation of import/export containers but doesn't touch on the most critical aspect of that for rail -- overhead clearance to support doublestack service to the Midwest --- is MM&A cleared to 19'6" to the CP via Montreal? Secondly, when you look at port market share there is a reason that NY/NJ is such a dominant player: their proximity to the huge northeast corridor consumer market from Boston down to Virginia with its center of gravity NY/NJ, and, their proximity to the Midwest and lower inland transportation rates as a result. Combine that with the high "fixed" costs of steamship lines (like railraods and trains) to operate their vessels, $100k/day according to this study, and their desire to call on as few ports as possible and get that ship back in "linehaul" operation, and I would think the demand from the steamship lines would be to build additional port capy. in NY/NJ. If that's not feasible, then the competition of other ports closer to the NE corridor and the Midwest, with d/s rail service, like Baltimore or Norfolk (with NS's recent Heartland corridor doublestack clearance project to the Midwest), or, quite possibly other states such as RI, CT, or PA interested in developing their port traffic, providing "greenfield" competition, IMHO will/would give this lots of alternative competition for steamship line demand... though I guess that doesn't necessarily impact the political side of attempting to jump on the economic development bandwagon of long-term international trade growth via East Coast ports....

As far as I see Maine has 1 thing all these ports dont and that is Location. It is the Furthest most point East in the United States. As such, you could save money on the Ships with a shorter cruise, and because railroads in Maine aren't congested, you could run several trains without many delays (With upgraded infrastructure of course). You could have containers going from Searsport to Chicago in probably 2 days.

The fact that Maine is easternmost in the US is moot... considering US vs Canada, steamship companies have little reason to discriminate between the country location of a port, except from a cost perspective. And if being easternmost is THE differentiator, Maine can't beat Halifax.

CN9634 wrote:As far as I see Maine has 1 thing all these ports dont and that is Location. It is the Furthest most point East in the United States. As such, you could save money on the Ships with a shorter cruise, and because railroads in Maine aren't congested, you could run several trains without many delays (With upgraded infrastructure of course). You could have containers going from Searsport to Chicago in probably 2 days.

Good point re. the ship operation economics, but that would be weighed against the land transportation side of things, and would not apply to competing with Halifax. Because of steamship line economics and service tradeoffs, each sailing would have mixed destinations with a large proportion for the NE corridor, many for the Midwest, and a "smattering" for smaller inland destinations. A rough, back-of-the-envelope "analysis" using the consultants $100k/day ship operation cost would indicate that your additional per box land transportation costs could not exceed, for every sailing day you save (and I'm unsure how much that would be vs. the port of NY/NJ), $250 for a 400 container shipload; $333 for a 300 container shipload, etc. etc via Searsport. You can see how difficult that competitive position would be to achieve (if at all) given the greatest distribution going to the Mid-Atlantic states, and, to a lesser degree, the Midwest, especially if you did not have doublestack service (rail transit time from NY/NJ; Balto. or Norfolk to the Midwest is second morning...best-case, possibly unachievable (?), for Searsport). BTW, does MM&A have doublestack clearance of 19'6" or higher to the CP?

Lets not forget the large delay charges shipping lines charge terminal operators if ships are not loaded/unloaded on time we're talking big bucks

Also labour,railworld I suppose will operate this terminal will this be non union or union? ILA is a very strong waterfront union so I honestly doubt it will be ununionized thus driving up the cost of operation

CP I do believe can haul double stack the entire line as they did for the latter years of the Canadian Atlantic from the Port of Saint John,I just don't understand on why the MMA can't support the NBSR and offer better service to help the port of Saint John and it wouldn't cost them millions unlike starting their own terminal

Back when the NBSR took over CN operations my Dad and I visited Island Yard days before the NBSR takeover. Being the "Lost Tourists" we went to the tower and talked to the operations guy. He told us that part of the deal was that CN would pull out of St. John but a large chunk of NBSR traffic would be routed over CN. I believe its a 99 year lease but don't hold me to exact figures. If you check out any of the NBSR videos, they have a lot of intermodal traffic that comes out of the port and goes to the CN. If all the traffic that went to CN went over the MMA, it would be a huge gain for the International Of Maine. Being up in Orono, It looks to me like traffic going to the NBSR from Pan Am is picking up.

Halifax has lost a lot of traffic over the years to the port of Montreal. A ship can steam up the St. Lawrence to Montreal by the time a ship unloads in Halifax and CN takes the containers through (Montreal). I cant see why Searsport would have an advantage over Montreal as a destination for containers since most of the Searsport containers would head right through (Montreal). Perhaps with the return of cooler winter temperatures the St. Lawrence will freeze up again, maybe.

The containers that go through St. John mostly are from the south, such as the Caribbean.

In my opinion there is no way Searsport is going to get a container port, though I am sure it will continue to be talked about for many many years.

I think Searsport is in better position to compete with New York. Searsport is the furthest east UNITED STATES port. While it could steal some Halifax traffic, I think a lot of shippers are hesitant to go to Halifax because you have to enter an extra country to get a product to the United States. If you could enter the United States without having to go through Canada you would avoid costly delays (Especially with tighter securities).

CN9634, shippers typically don't care through which countries their shipments transit. With respect, I think your comments about customs delays are unwarranted. Consider, for instance, traffic that transits west on the MMA has similar customs clearance issues (either Canada-US [Maine]-Canada and Maine-Canada-US [Michigan/NY/VT]) that doesn't seem to slow 'em down too much.

Customs handles all containers on the warf as soon as the crane drops them on the shunt truck they are x-rayed and the serial number is searched in the system and checks for seal tags.

The only reason containers could be red flagged at the border is if they are not in the order of the car list given by the train crew to customs at the border or the seal is broken.

Interesting topic. One might want to consider the proposed Maine east-west highway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East-West_ ... w_England) Construction plans call for the addition of rail as a possibility. That would make for a mighty fine new rail route from Montreal to Halifax. However, there are rumors that some restrictions may be put in place to prevent this from happening. It seems that some powerfull elected officials in D.C. would hate to loose the power they wield on certain transportation committies they are members of. No need to buy your member of congress if you can construct your own road with your own funds. Some talk of laws that would prevent a private road going over, under, or intersecting with a Interstate highway. (I-95) Hence.....no private road.....maybe...

Local news (Belfast Republican) reporting that after 4 decades of debates, and seemingly endless lawsuits, the Sears Island termanial will begin construction within the next year or so pending a site study. The 900 acre island will be devided up into 2 areas. One area will be a 300 acre port facility and the other a 600 acre conservation trust. I'm guessing that rail service will follow the existing causeway and road. Has anyone seen plans for this yet? I would imagine that the condo community (NIMBY's)on the northeast side of the river will try to stop this.....time will tell.