Intermodal to Saint John

Hapag’s Livorno express is berthed at the terminal now

Another hapag vessel departed SJ last night. Appears to be weekly svc. I think its destination was listed as Montreal. Not clear to me why they would keep calling both ports

The reason I learned is that they have been limiting the number of containers loaded on the ships headed up the St. Lawrence to Montreal, due to draft limitations and most containers being heavies (27.5MT max instead of 20MT legal on most US highways). With the SJ call first, they can load the ships right up, dump off a bunch of containers for inland rail and make it up the seaway to Montreal without trouble. They grab the exports at Montreal which are a lot of empties going back to Europe.

Got it. The only down side to that operation is that cp will have to regularly deadhead a bunch of well cars across ME to pick up the loads

For container traffic, The seaway is done for long term by its inability to handle big vessels

Sounds like Maersk will drop anchor soon so they may end up working on that equipment imbalance. I know too the port has taken TTX wells off CN that have come in for CMA-CGM traffic on their side. Empty wells often reposition East anyhow, as containers land on the Eastern shore if not consumed locally they can move loaded to the Midwest and be evacuated west to get to Asia more quickly. The global scale of container balancing is mind numbing, having played that game a few years in a previous career.

So you are saying that CN services the container ships in SJ on the Caribbean circuit. I did not know that.

Even if your current career is not international shipping logistics, you are still very plugged in to Maine and maritimes transport news

Correct-- here are some videos on the CN side

Contrary to popular belief, you can make a living in Global Transportation in Maine, you just need to be prepared to be frustrated constantly

CMA-CGM // APL boxes are primarily what you see, occasionally and rarely others. Sometimes they have a few containers, I've also seen upwards of 60, 70 and 80 boxes on CN before. During the recent and unfortunate hurricanes in Puerto Rico, a ton of containers went out SJ because of Jones Act avoidance (presumably) and direct service providing a key lifelane for recovery.

Thanks for that video
I had no idea cn moved stacks to SJ

Pictures on Facebook(NOrthern Maine Rail) of the first of the refurbished engines to be used on the Brownville/St. John runs. If the rest are like the first, it looks like Irving is really serious about what they expect to happen in the future. Sorry if I didn't get the right name for the Facebook group, but I am sure someone will get the correct info.

I did a Google search for Northern Maine Rail Facebook but couldn't find anything.

My apologizes. The Facebook Group is named Maine Northern Railway.

It is here on Jim's blog too: https://www.jimpearsonphotography.com/n ... aducah-ky/

Playing in the big leagues now!

They’ll need to put that new power to use soon. The container calls are regular now
Glasgow express arriving over night from Spain

The planned expansion of the port of Quebec just failed the required environmental impact assessment, so will not move forward. In the scheme of things, it's net neutral. Development of the new and improved Montreal (Contrecoeur PQ) container terminal continues, however.