The plans are attached to the first document I attached.
Relative to this matter one should remember that out of the 3million+PLUS containers
(actual,i.e. NOT TEUs) put through the port of NY-NJ in 2007, only 358K were railborne.
Hence, the appeal of this biggest consigned port, as well as the three other major
Atlantic seaboard US container ports ( defining that category as handling 1Million to 1.5 Million containers per annum) of: Norfolk-Hampton Roads, Va.; Charleston, S.C.; and
Savannah is the market reached by highway vehicles.
Not only that, there is in the case of the Big Apple, the immediate 250 mile drivingarea to act as a sink for imports, and a source of export loads.
Another consideration, is the amount of these outbound container loads.
The presence of direct ,via the Panama Canal, traffic from the Orient,
and its growth at the Port of New York is a reflection of this.
The largest US international container port is LA and its neighbor Long Beach.
Together they top 8million a year in recent years, but have low levels of
returning loads.
Houston, which is a large container port, has virtually no outbound loads.
The large Japanese,Taiwanese,ChiCom, and other oriental based shipping
companies are line hauling to the EastCoast of the US, in order
to serve ports where they can improve the balances between incoming
and outgoing loads.
The Searsport Terminal as competitor is a ludicrous proposition for
almost all of PoNY-NJ traffic, as well as all the traffic going to and
from the other Atlantic seaboard container receiving nodes.
It makes lots of sense to build it for the benefit of the construction
industry/financial industry complex that runs Augusta. They have
bought and paid for the legislature by direct campaign contributions,
and percs of all sorts available from a diverse set of cohabiting
lobbying, political action, and even charitable front organizations.
If they want to save some money on hardware by the way, they can
find about 2 dozen idle container handling gantries , built in the
last 15 years. Subsidized by taxpayers at the coastal ports involved,
and built by state and federal subsidies that exist as monuments to
the cupidity of state and local politicians and the construction/financial
industries complex's that own those legislatures. They are industrial
sculptures memorializing the fruits of studies showing that port 'X'
in Delaware, N.C., S.C. or wherever, - was ready to assume its
rightful place as a container port to serve local users (no matter how
few existed, since more would flock to their salubrious climes when it
was built), as well as capture a share of the traffic going to Charleston
or Savannah, or __________ fill in the blank. I don't know if they got
Kevin Costner, Amy Madigan, or James Earl Jones to work the
crowd, to bring these phantasies to fruition but that they succeeded
can be easily seen by touring the Atlantic coast and looking at ports
which do not attract even a single containerliner per year.
These inactive giants are there for the dismantling... assuming you have
the grea$e to allow them to be silently disassembled and carried off to
Searsport where they can be re-erected as industrial sculptures at
the expense of the taxpayers of the state of Maine, with federal
dollar assistance. It would save a few bucks, and you would be both buying
American, and keeping gangGreen happy (always a consideration
in the NEW Maine) by saving energy and recycling.
All the surveys in the world , blessed by those members of the benefitting
establishments, are only there to facilitate the Barnumesque sobriquet
and fleece the suckers, and make them grateful for the hosing they are
getting at the same time.
Good-Luck, Peter Boylan