Lakers As Container Ships

Post a reply

BBCode is ON
[img] is ON
[url] is ON
Smilies are OFF
Topic review
   

If you wish to attach one or more files enter the details below.

Maximum filesize per attachment: 3 MiB.

Expand view Topic review: Lakers As Container Ships

Re: Lakers As Container Ships

by fireman12 » November 25, 2015, 11:21 am

If my memory serves me correctly I recall seeing a story in Halco`s Postcliffe , the company news letter, about the Maplecliffe Hall and her running containers from Montreal to up on the lakes. I know I saw it, and still have it in the pile of Postcliffes my Dad had received from Hall during his retirement.

Re: Lakers As Container Ships

by jacques » November 23, 2015, 9:08 am

Sadly, for the marine industry, the railways have this business sewn up. if the only way Ceeway keeps on operating is by being heavily subsidized then it is essentially someones "vanity project". As soon as the bean-counters figure that out it will all come to a grinding halt.

Re: Lakers As Container Ships

by Mac Mackay » November 22, 2015, 7:47 pm

Manchester Liners tried a container feeder service in the early 1970s for a few years from its Montreal terminal up through the Lakes. It was really a continuation of its previous general cargo service.
It was hardly a paying proposition based on the numbers of containers the ships were able to carry.
The railways soon caught on to the container business and provided quicker, cheaper and more direct service to inland ports.
I caught Manchester Mercurio in the Beauharnois Lock on September 10, 1975.
Attachments
7516-16a Manchester Mercurio.jpg

Re: Lakers As Container Ships

by Mr Link » November 21, 2015, 10:31 pm

$2.5 million anticipated subsidy for 2015. It was $3.7 million in 2014.

Re: Lakers As Container Ships

by jacques » November 21, 2015, 9:17 pm

The cleveland europe express is subsidized by the port to the tune of,i believe, $2.5 m per year. Remove that and I think it would stop. You cannot compete with the status quo.

Re: Lakers As Container Ships

by cpfan » November 21, 2015, 6:02 pm

This season was the second year of the Cleveland-Europe Express service. Spliethoff ships (eg Floragracht) ran from Antwerp to Valleyfield to Antwerp with containers and other cargo. Although I never saw a lot of containers on any one passage, it is an operating container service.

Steve

Re: Lakers As Container Ships

by Guest » November 21, 2015, 4:37 pm

Unfortunately I believe the lakes cannot compete with the receiving ports on the East and West coasts for container shipments. The very design of Great Lakes ships makes them unsuitable to carry the large number of containers necessary to compete against the railroads. Meanwhile, the ports themselves lack the equipment necessary to handle this traffic and its subsequent distribution to markets throughout the US and Canada. To establish such a trade would require a significant investment and would face fierce competition from ports already handling this traffic. This would most likely result in a rate war that the established ports would win without direct government intervention. The only possible container trade that could possibly develop, in my opinion anyways, would be a niche market that could realize some cost savings over routing through conventional trade patterns.

Re: Lakers As Container Ships

by garbear » November 21, 2015, 1:42 pm

This was from the Duluth News Tribune-Oct. 9, 1975.

•The Duluth Port Terminal’s new $2.5 million container crane is scheduled to begin operating this weekend. The crane has a capacity of 30 long tons and can move containers between ships and land carriers at the rate of 25 per hour.

In the 9 years I sailed and having lived in Duluth since 1979, before it was dismantled, I saw the crane maybe used 4-5 times. And that was never for containers. I think once the crane was dismantled it went to the Gulf Coast. For some reason I think it went to Galveston.

Re: Lakers As Container Ships

by Guest » November 21, 2015, 1:38 pm

The container crane in Duluth was installed in 1975. The only time I can recall it being used, was when the Roger Blough in late September 1987, on her first trip after being in lay-up for six years, had to use it to remove her hatch-covers because there was a problem with the hatch-crane.

Re: Lakers As Container Ships

by Ray » November 21, 2015, 12:27 pm

Many years ago (Circa 1960's & 70s) Port Terminal in Duluth had a large gantry crane that I had heard a number of times was for container shipping industry in the Twin Ports that never developed. Rumor was that the crane had never been used.

If that was the purpose of this crane, it would seem that the idea was bounced around long before hte 1980s.

Re: Lakers As Container Ships

by Skip G » November 21, 2015, 5:32 am

I believe in the summer of 1984, Maplecliffe Hall made three trips up bound from the St. Lawrence with CAST containers on deck and in the holds. On two occasions the ship unloaded at Windsor while it stopped at Detroit the third time.

It was about 1981 that a plan was established, by a subsidiary of Cliffs, to carry containers down the Seaway aboard the William P. Snyder Jr. but this never developed. The ship moved to a firm called American Bulk Shipping in 1983-1984 but it remained idle at Toledo and when the company defaulted, the vessel reverted to Cliffs.

Re: Lakers As Container Ships

by Guest » November 21, 2015, 12:04 am

Cleveland-Cliffs had planned to convert some of their older ships to move containers in the early '80s, but it only went as far as registering the ships in Los Angeles and nothing more.

The October 1983 issue of The Scanner, a publication of the Toronto Marine Historical Society had a photo of the ULS ship Montrealais with 306 containers on her deck, and a cargo of wheat in her holds. The voyage occurred in mid-August 1983.

Re: Lakers As Container Ships

by Mr Link » November 20, 2015, 11:56 pm

It's my understanding that intermodal is fiercely competitive. And time sensitive. And its been around long enough that if there is money to be made by hauling containers on the lakes, I think someone would already be doing it.

There is a company that wants to develop some sort of container service out of Muskegon to Milwaukee and Cleveland intermodal terminals using laid-up off shore supply vessels. I honestly think they are crazy. Someone who is in the intermodal business posted in 2013 on a railfan page that 40 or 53 foot containers could be trucked from west Michigan to Chicago for about $375 plus a fuel surcharge. And they can be there in about 5 hours. How is a ship going to compete with that?

http://www.mlive.com/news/muskegon/inde ... r_shi.html

Perhaps there is an opportunity to provide a feeder service out of Halifax and/or Montreal. But to do so would require going head to head against well established rail routes and admitting your service will be much slower and more sporadic (ie shut down every winter). Again, I don't see how a company can make a successful business model out of that.

Re: Lakers As Container Ships

by frus » November 20, 2015, 8:05 pm

Firstly there's no business case for it, the economics and logistics don't work and secondly the configuration of lakers, small hatches etc make them very poor container vessels. Halco tried it in the mid 80's and it was a pointless exercise.

Lakers As Container Ships

by johnfrombrighton » November 20, 2015, 7:30 pm

Given the downturn in some traditional cargos, has any company ever considered the conversion - even on a temporary basis - of Great Lakes bulk carriers (especially gearless bulkers) into container ships that could carry containers both in their holds & on deck?

Top