CN to build major transload hub, intermodal yard in Prince George

PRINCE GEORGE, B.C. — Being positioned as a staging ground for Canada’s next major gateway to the Asian market, the city of Prince George will see a new $20-million CN transload operation and intermodal rail terminal later this year.

Prince George, located 500 miles east of the budding Port of Prince Rupert, is in close proximity to B.C.’s large fibre reserves and other natural resources and is CN’s divisional headquarters and main operations hub in northern B.C.

The new facility will transload truck or rail containerized products to and from Asian markets through Prince Rupert’s rail/maritime intermodal facility.

North B.C. ports are counting on CN to expand
its infrastructure and boost capacity in order to grow

“The new Prince George terminal is an important part of the Pacific Gateway Strategy as it will maximize the potential of new port capacity at Prince Rupert,” says Peter Marshall, CN senior vice-president, Western Region.

The Prince George facility is ideally located to tap backhaul export opportunities, filling empty containers moving to China via Prince Rupert with lumber, panels, woodpulp and paper, as well as ores, plastics and some metals products, says Marshall.

CN’s transload facility, with an 84,000 sq-ft warehouse and 10 acres of outside storage, is expected to open in fall 2007.

Loaded containers will then be lifted onto railway flatcars at CN’s new adjacent intermodal rail yard, and daily service will be offered from this terminal to the Port of Prince Rupert.

The terminal will open with a phase one capacity of 500,000 twenty-foot equivalent containers (TEUs).

The Prince Rupert Port has been successful in evolving from a small bulk cargo port into an emerging container gateway. It recently completed conversion of its Fairview terminal, which could perhaps be an alternative to the overly congested and embattled Port of Vancouver.

In 2006, it handled 7.7 million metric tones of commodities, compared to 4.4 million metric tonnes in 2005. Grain throughput increased more than 52 percent to 4.7 million tones, while new coal mines in northern B.C. and strong Asian demand fueled a 177 percent increase in coal shipments to 2.8 million tones.

By 2008, capacity at all three Lower Mainland terminals, plus the in Prince Rupert will be at 3.79 million TEUs. Predicted throughput demand in 2010 is 3.55 million TEUs rising to over half a billion by 2015.