(The following report appeared on the Cargo News Asia website on July 20.)
PORTLAND, Ore. — Since 1883, when the burgeoning city of Tacoma became the western terminus of the first trans-continental railroad to reach Puget Sound, the fortunes of the city and its harbour have been inextricably linked to the railroads.
In that year, the old Northern Pacific completed a line that would open the way for trains that whisked tea and Asian silk from the docks of Tacoma to merchants and wedding dressmakers in New York. Tacoma was the city “where the rails meet the sails”, said Tacoma waterfront historian Ron Magden.
Silk and tea are no longer dominant imports, and the railroads have gone through an untold number of business cycles and mergers. At the same time, the Pacific northwest has experienced extraordinary growth.
But at Commencement Bay, the port and the railroads are still the driving forces of a maritime economic engine that produces tens of thousands of jobs while serving commerce from western Washington to the East Coast of the United States.
“It’s been quite a marriage,” Magden said of the relationship between the port and the railroads. “In all the history between them, there’s never been a fundamental breakdown – they’ve always resolved their differences. The port of Tacoma prospers today because of its railroad system and its land for growth.”
Today, two mainline railroads serve Tacoma. They are the BNSF Railway – successor to the Northern Pacific – and the Union Pacific Railroad. Together, those two mainline railroads carry about 70 percent of the port’s inbound containerised cargo eastward toward the major markets of the midwest and the east coast.
The port of Tacoma has been working for the past 30 years building a niche in the business of intermodal cargo.
Maximising the advantage of its rail connections, more than 25 years ago, the port of Tacoma was the first on the west coast with a true on-dock intermodal rail yard, enabling a quick transfer of containers from ships to rail cars. Today, the port has four on-dock intermodal yards and will have a fifth with completion of a new terminal for NYK Line in mid-2012.
“The railroads have made a commitment to work with us and grow with us as we expand,” said Mike Reilly, the port’s director of intermodal business. The port currently handles about two million TEUs annually, a number which is expected to grow to 3.8 million TEUs by 2010. As total cargo movement grows, the port expects the percentage of intermodal to remain consistent.
“We can handle the business through expansion and by adding new terminal space,” Reilly said, noting that total container traffic is projected to expand by 14.7 percent per year through 2012.
Larry Gerek, Union Pacific’s senior business director for intermodal market development, is the commercial liaison between his company and west coast ports. “Working with the port of Tacoma has been extremely positive,” Gerek said. “The employees at the port have gone above and beyond to try to make sure we have the correct information and insights to make good decisions and support growth in the Pacific Northwest.”
Union Pacific is currently conducting an analysis of its west coast operations, according to Gerek, who added, “We’re looking at the Pacific Northwest for future expansion needs. There are several ideas and concepts that we’re evaluating today to make sure we’re ready for the anticipated growth of the port of Tacoma specifically.”
Rick Wilson, director of port development for BNSF Railway, said intermodal growth would occur as the Pacific northwest attracts its share of the expanding Pacific trade and as shippers and railroads look for alternatives to moving cargo through busy Southern California.
Wilson added: “Other ports have a rail planning function, but they are not nearly as involved in the day-to-day operations as the port of Tacoma,” he said. “The port understands rail operations very well and acts as a flow manager to keep traffic moving efficiently.”
Larry St Clair, the port’s director of intermodal marketing, said all the port’s intermodal yards are on-dock. In addition to being more efficient, those operations also generate less pollution than trucks that otherwise would have to haul containers to more distant sites to be loaded on rail cars.