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The 2011 Rail Conference: Moving Freight and Passengers in the 21 st Century Seaports and Freight Rail

The 2011 Rail Conference: Moving Freight and Passengers in the 21 st Century Seaports and Freight Rail. Eric D. Johnson Executive Director Washington Public Ports Association. An Overview of Seaports: Governance. Nearly all of the nations major seaports are publically-owned enterprises

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The 2011 Rail Conference: Moving Freight and Passengers in the 21 st Century Seaports and Freight Rail

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  1. The 2011 Rail Conference:Moving Freight and Passengers in the 21st CenturySeaports and Freight Rail Eric D. Johnson Executive Director Washington Public Ports Association

  2. An Overview of Seaports: Governance • Nearly all of the nations major seaports are publically-owned enterprises • The governance model varies: • Division of state • Regional city organization • Departments of cities • Independent local governments

  3. Operations: • Ports build and maintain the transportation infrastructure that enables water-borne commerce to move to and from highway and rail modes: • Marine terminal docks • Near-dock rail • Near-dock roads • Shipping channels

  4. Business Models: • Lease land, buildings and equipment to private companies • Occasionally a port operates its own terminals • Most ports subsidize these investments in order to create jobs and regional prosperity

  5. Overview of North America’s Rail Network: • We have competing gateways, especially for Mid-west cargo

  6. Class I RailroadsUS Operations *Association of American Railroads - Railroad Facts 2010 edition

  7. National RailCommodity Flow

  8. Port Related Canadian Commodities

  9. Emerging Themes: • Canadian Competition

  10. Emerging Themes: • Panama Canal widening (completed in 2014)

  11. New York • Eastern U.S. and Gulf Ports areMaking Strategic Investments for Competitiveness: • Deeper shipping channels • Larger terminals • Inland corridor improvements Norfolk  Charleston Jasper County  Mobile  Savannah  Jacksonville  Houston

  12. Emerging Themes: • Direct Trans-Atlantic routes through Suez Canal • Asian – especially Chinese – demand for raw materials • Shifting manufacturing trends • Southward in Asia • Southward in U.S.

  13. AMTRAK • Passenger trains operateon freight lines in mostcorridors • Passenger trains usemuch more capacity thanfreight trains due tospeed/schedule requirements

  14. Importance ofRail Yards • Disassemble and reassemble trains for ultimate destination • Location where crewsgo on/off duty • Holding area for trains when destination not ready to receive (staging) • Locomotive and railcar maintenance

  15. Unit Trains • Trains of 100 + railcars of single commodity going point to point • Trains lengths up to 8,600 feet • Trend is towards longer trains • Most efficient operation • Pricing incentives to shippers due to efficiencies • Length of trains demands longer track configurations at origin/destination and sidings

  16. Emerging Themes: • Scale of investment in key rail corridors leads to multi-state public/private coalitions. Examples: • Heartland Corridor (Norfolk Southern) • National Gateway (CSX)

  17. What does it mean? • Our nations seaports exist in a dynamic economy • Many key factors and variables are out of our control • We rely on timely investments from the Class I railroads • Public partnerships with the private sector are more important than ever

  18. Questions? Eric Johnson, Executive Director Washington Public Ports Association PO Box 1518 Olympia, WA 98507 360-943-0760 ericj@washingtonports.org

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