By IAN ROSS
Intermodal shipping is taking its first fledgling steps in Sault Ste. Marie with a new 60,000-square-foot terminal in the city’s west end.
The $3 million Sault Intermodal Inc. is the city’s first terminal and distribution warehouse with a dozen loading bays and 3,500 feet of track connected to the Canadian Pacific (CP) and Canadian National (CN) Railways.
Beginning in July, local businessman and Great Lakes marine operator Jack Purvis began storing Kraft and fine paper products from Marathon Pulp Inc. and St. Marys Paper in the warehouse while he continues to promote his new facility to Northern Ontario shippers.
The terminal is situated on 15 acres of property between Algoma Steel and the city’s newly completed truck corridor, which connects Highway 17 to the International Bridge.
The City of Sault Ste. Marie has been studying and promoting the idea of attracting West Coast rail container traffic destined for U.S. markets through the Sault. It’s hoped major shippers, frustrated by container terminal delays and congestion at southern Ontario border points, might be interested in faster transportation alternatives.
Purvis, who sits on the City’s multimodal committee, volunteered to invest his own money to erect the terminal and get the Sault’s transportation hub concept off the ground.
A rail spur running into his building can accommodate up to seven railway box or flatbed cars, with more loading and unloading space on the outside of the terminal. Servicing the facility are six forklifts ranging from 5,000 pounds to 70,000 pounds lifting capacity.
In anticipation of large volumes in the future, Purvis says the building has been constructed to allow for expansion to the west onto an adjoining property he owns.
A new 100-metre rail spur will be built across the city’s truck route to connect his Cathcart Street facility with the Canadian Pacific-Huron Central line running east to Sudbury. The $247,000 project is being funded in a three-way deal between the City of Sault Ste. Marie, FedNor and the Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corp.
But Canadian National, which operates the former Algoma Central Railway running north to their main cross-Canada line at Oba, hasn’t given its overwhelming blessing to the idea of moving containers away from its existing systems to the Sault.
Purvis says container traffic is something his customers have been talking quite often about, but to encourage CN to get on board, there must be large volumes of freight moving through the Sault.
“We can bring containers on flatbed cars but to really make it economical, it has to come in double-decked.”
Purvis says his current focus is not on handling containers just yet, but “cross-dock” opportunities in transferring forestry and mining products from rail to truck. He acknowledges that he is talking to interested forestry fibreboard and paper producers, but can’t disclose any details.
Besides providing U. S. access for Northern Ontario shippers, he’s also interested in attracting westbound freight traffic incoming connecting the Port of Montreal to shippers in Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
Purvis, who operates one of the largest tug and barge services on the Great Lakes, says he’s had inquiries from across the North about moving freight from rail to ship.
His largest vessel is capable of carrying 450 twenty-foot equivalent units of containers aboard his 9,000-tonne capacity barge.
“We’ve been entertaining (containers) since we’ve been approached by different shippers to see if we’d be interested.”
Most of his current barge work involves hauling Algoma Steel coils south to Windsor and Chicago, with slabs coming upbound from Hamilton.
While shipping containers on the Great Lakes remains at the conceptual stage, Purvis believes there are “several billion dollars” worth of product that moves both ways between Minnesota and the European market.
