In Gear - Today's Trucking

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Dispatches
downtown makes good
business sense. The Halifax
Trucking Options Study,
prepared by N.S.-based
marine consulting firm
Marinova Consulting,
recommends the city build
an inland terminal, in the
neighbouring suburb of
Bedford. Goods entering
Halifax by ship would be
loaded directly onto rail
cars and transported to the
inland terminal, where
they would then be picked
up by truck.
Each year, approximately
14 million metric tonnes of
cargo dock at one of
Halifax’s two container
terminals, resulting in
hundreds of trucks passing
through the small
downtown each day.
Proponents say the move
would help address longstanding
complaints about
the noise, pollution, and
traffic congestion attributed
to the city’s heavy
truck traffic.
In a report to Halifax
council last week, Mike
Labrecque, director of
Transportation and Public
Works, wrote “the additional
cost of transferring a
container from rail to
truck is approximately
offset by savings in truck
travel time not having to
contend with city traffic
reaching the port.”
Brian Conrad, owner of
Conrad Transport, a
container haulage company,
agrees that an inland
terminal would likely
reduce congestion
downtown and save his
drivers the headache of
battling city traffic. But he
says the biggest savings
would come as a result of
not having to cross the
16 TODAY’S TRUCKING
Halifax-Dartmouth toll
bridge—a major access
route to the city. He pegs
the annual savings in toll
fees at roughly $100,000 per
year. However, while he’d
love another option outside
the port terminals, Conrad
won’t hold his breath.
“We’ve talked about this for
20 years,” he says.
— with files from
Eleanor Beaton
Intermodal
Railroads in a
Renaissance?
The railroad industry has
passed through an inflection
point and may now be
in the early stages of a
comeback, some freight
experts are predicting.
In a presentation to the
Associations of American
Railroads’ Treasury-Finance
division, John Larkin, managing
director of U.S.-based
Transportation Group-
Equity Research, Stifel,
Nicolaus & Co., said the
railroads have done a good
job of downsizing over the
years and have made
massive improvements in
productivity. Many have
encountered financial
difficulty and even now
aren’t earning their cost of
capital but “we think the
railroads are right on the
verge of changing this
decade-old story,” he said.
Rail business, he says,
should get a boost from
three key shipping
sources: imports, coal, and
grain. Over the next 10
years, the number of
imported containers coming
into North America is
expected to double and
rail moves much of that
container freight.