Intermodal to Saint John

The hapag Liverpool express is approaching the coast of Nova Scotia tonight in bound to SJ

Detroit express is in bound to Saint John in the bay of fundy.

Hapag’s Genoa express is in port at Saint John today. Anyone know what kind of volumes cp is moving for hapag and the other container services in Saint John?

The first ship dumped 300 boxes, which wasn't very much. The second one had some more and this one seems like it's going to have 10000' or more of intermodal. They typically run it over the first three days or so, but it can spread out into the week.

My understanding originally was that NBSR was going to try to run two dedicated intermodal trains two days a week in place of their manifest (so not adding any trains), but it seems the manifest traffic is taking off too. I'm told by end of summer, CP will have another pair of trains on the Moosehead, dedicated intermodal/autos, as new import autos from Europe will be coming online shortly this year. Not sure how NBSR is going to handle that....

On a more curious note, CN has also instituted its own domestic intermodal (53') service to Saint John. I find that interesting because Moncton is only 90 miles away and that facility has capacity to grow. CN is using DP World as the terminal, but those containers obviously still need to go over NBSR. I'm skeptical this service will last, but obviously a competitive measure against CP and seems as though there is a demand for it. I believe they are fighting over the Canadian Tire business, which I understand could be as many as 30 or more domestic containers a day.

CP domestic business has been doing well, last week they have 31 domestic containers on a single train, with often days them seeing anywhere from 10-20 domestic boxes, including reefers. It's mostly been all CP retail business, with some pool EMP boxes mixed in as well as Bison.

Thanks for the updated info. Competition is magic. Suddenly cn decides to upgrade their service

Today's 142 was past Bodfish at 15:55 per a video posted to the FB group. Looked to be about 145 cars, with over 90 empty wells, and about 7-10 loaded ones headed east.

I counted 4 boxes in the well cars and they all looked like domestic containers. Is cp moving any loaded international containers east bound for shipping out of SJ.
Very interesting that SJ will be starting vehicle imports. Presumably Halifax is the loser here as I would not think SJ would handle vehicles bound for the US market. Many ships travel between Halifax and US auto ports in Boston, davisville, NYNJ, Baltimore etc. Now they’ll presumably add SJ to the route

Could have missed them, but I have not noticed any maersk vessels in Saint John yet this month
They had a few port calls in may

Here is more on that-- sounds like they expect a permeant service by end of this year

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... rn-canada/

That’s a very positive report on SJ!

You tube has a video of yesterday’s searsport job. Sure looks to me like cp has recently done a tie and ballast job on the searsport line. The consist is 100% tank cars

F74265A wrote: ↑Fri Jun 11, 2021 4:04 pm You tube has a video of yesterday’s searsport job. Sure looks to me like cp has recently done a tie and ballast job on the searsport line. The consist is 100% tank cars

Would be more helpful if you shared the link rather than just telling us about it.

It would have been even less helpful if I’d kept the info to myself. No easy way to attach links from my phone and finding the video with google is straight forward.

First result for "CP Searsport". Couldn't have been any easier.

Thanks for posting the link. It’s a great video showing the current state of of the line.