The only issue with Boston Conley is that it lacks a direct on-dock rail connection. Saying that Portland has more potential than Conley is absurd-- the biggest ship you can berth at Portland is a 1250 TEU ship, whereas Boston can take multiple 8000TEUs ships... Conley moved more than 300,000 TEUs last year... Portland is closing in on 30K moved the past 12 months. If there was a compelling enough case and the right partner, they would try to hobble together some kind of rail link there.
Saint John is hovering around the 100K TEUs mark but with this new business I suspect that'll double if this business holds. In all likelihood it will become what Boston should have been and AIM will get booted with that area reclaimed for containers. AIM already has pushed the limits with their operation and the 'controversial' operations that it sounds like they are already on the outs with the city.
More chips will fall in the coming years, I suspect CP will try to reclaim entire ownership of the line all the way to SJ. One wonders how that will work with CN, if they can exchange rights to the container port in exchange for the potash port, or if CN would abandon it all together since they have HalTerm and the new Laurentia terminal . That would be a dagger to Montreal if both the big RRs left....wait this is the Pan Am forums right? Woops went on a tangent...
As for a Pan Am suitor, hopefully they can make good with the Saint John connection. There is still viability for a feeder service from Ayer to SJ I suspect more so now if steamship lines start showing up there, and as long as its an Irving property with the open door policy, might as well take advantage? Conley services the Far East trades pretty handily but has a blind spot in the Transatlantic trade. I believe that was what the Halifax clipper did back in the day, feed TransAtlantic volumes into the Boston market in competition with NYC.
Saint John is hovering around the 100K TEUs mark but with this new business I suspect that'll double if this business holds. In all likelihood it will become what Boston should have been and AIM will get booted with that area reclaimed for containers. AIM already has pushed the limits with their operation and the 'controversial' operations that it sounds like they are already on the outs with the city.
More chips will fall in the coming years, I suspect CP will try to reclaim entire ownership of the line all the way to SJ. One wonders how that will work with CN, if they can exchange rights to the container port in exchange for the potash port, or if CN would abandon it all together since they have HalTerm and the new Laurentia terminal . That would be a dagger to Montreal if both the big RRs left....wait this is the Pan Am forums right? Woops went on a tangent...
As for a Pan Am suitor, hopefully they can make good with the Saint John connection. There is still viability for a feeder service from Ayer to SJ I suspect more so now if steamship lines start showing up there, and as long as its an Irving property with the open door policy, might as well take advantage? Conley services the Far East trades pretty handily but has a blind spot in the Transatlantic trade. I believe that was what the Halifax clipper did back in the day, feed TransAtlantic volumes into the Boston market in competition with NYC.