Its interesting that with an economic downturn staring us in the face, how we suddenly take a active interest in the outlying areas, and raise their importance to the overall economy..

We now consider the area from Ft Nelson, to 100 Mile House, to Kitimat and Prince Rupert as being in our backyard and try to take some credit for everything that happens in these areas.

When I travel through some of these areas I find that they have little or no interest in Prince George.

As an example. Vancouver has about 5 Major Container Terminals, and will be spending approx 500 Million on infrastructure to update roads, bridges, berths, etc in the next few years. You will not see anything in the local papers about these Container Terminals even though approx 50,000 or more containers per year are loaded in Vancouver with product from this area.

What you will hear is a lot of drivel about the Port of Prince Rupert container terminal, with the veiled impression that it will have some effect on the City of Prince George. (Not much).

The Container Terminals in Vancouver have had a positive effect on the City of Prince George for years, however it has always been ignored.

Why is this???

Both Citys are approx 500 Miles from Prince George. One we think we have some influence over, the other we totally ignore.

Pooponalau, you miss the main point. Its not that both PR and Van are both 500 Miles from PG.

Its the fact that Prince Rupert is on a direct shipping route through PG connected to the shipping hub of the US. PG on the other hand is a 500 Miles detour for any cargo going through Vancouver unless of course it is going to/from Fort St John. Your right in that we get a significant amount of rail traffic as a result of the Peace country up North. Its why BC Rail was the most profitable Railway per mile in all of North America.

BC Rail was sold only because the government wanted to remove their accountability from management decisions that will be made in the future resulting in closing the Prince George to Vancouver rail connection. CN was given some public dollars to ensure they would go along with the Northern Port and the ability to tap the profits of BC Rail into their balance sheet for 999 years as compensation. Campbell needed the railbed for the Olympics for 2-weeks.

In the end PG could be a winner and the idea of a link to a port in Vancouver will quickly fade into the history books as Vancouver is over run with southern traffic.

The only question then is why would we still be allowing our taxes to go south to prop up their Vancouver centered regimes If Vancouver doubles in size by 2010 the answers will be obviose even for the weakest of minds. If we severe the economic link becasue a two week party for the south, then why not the political....

With the Port of Prince Rupert I see no reason why an independent province or territory of Northern BC would not be any less viable than any of the four Atlantic provinces.

Profits into income statement for 999 years....

Another Action Group? At least all the seed money is growing something - Committees!!
Economic Diversification means getting on a Committee. If they are all full, start another one.

Chandermando. Your thinking is seriously flawed. The assumption is that because the Containers coming and going to Prince Rupert will pass through Prince George then as a result we will have a huge benefit. All the Trains for both the CN Rail and CP Rail carrying containers to and from the Port of Vancouver (Approx 2.5 Million or more a year)pass through the City of Kamloops, without having any effect on that City at all except for some crew changes. The same could be said about these trains passing through Hinton Alta.

You can rest assured that there will be little or no effect on the City of Prince George because of the Container Terminal in Prince Rupert, at best we will maintain the status quo.

An in depth study of the operating costs for the BC Rail for the past 20 years would clearly show that this Railway was not and never was profitable, nor was it ever intended to be. It was built to open up the North and has served its purpose. The CN can make profits off this line because of the economies of scale. The BC Rail could never do this.

Palopu, Container shipping is relatively new. Edmonton has obviously benefited from its inland container port status.

Kamloops does not because Kamloops is not a cross roads.

That said both Kamloops and Ascroft are soon to be homes to BC's first interior inland container ports and they don't hold a candle to the strategic importance of PG.

Facts are CP container traffic goes through southern BC and is mostly containerized in Vancouver, as is CN's containers that are not shipped to Edmonton for that purpose. Vancouver had room to do it all in house, and now that will start to change as Vancouver increases capacity. Prince Rupert on the other hand does not have the available land for a containerization facility. Thus the need to outsource the service that Vancouver keeps in house.

Ass for BC Rail you know nothing. BC Rail had the highest operating margin of any railroad in Northern BC. BC Rail also had a huge political liability as a crown corporation that subsidized the infrastructure development into Northern BC Tumbler Ridge and the Deese Lake extension which cost over a Billion dollars in capital expendature that BC Rail was expected to finance and pay off with its operating profits. Now we the tax payer would have to pay for that and CN would simply benefit from the taxpayer subsidized infrastructure development as they have for the container port inPrince Rupert. Now rather than having a profitable impartial operator subsidizing the infrastructure we have outsourced it directly to the tax payer.

Container shipping was pioneered in the mid 1960's and the shipping world was rapidly switching to containers by the early 1970s.

I was a mere baby in those days. To me 35+ years does not denote "relatively new".

;-)

http://www.portofhalifax.ca/AbsPage.aspx?id=1269&siteid=1&lang=1

"Halifax container port opens 1970" - first "common use" container terminal in Canada.

Relatively new IMO because we didn't have the massive Chinese trade with the US until after Tiananmen Square massacre. It wasn't until the early 90's when the Walmart flood gates opened that large scale containerization took place on the West Coast.

In the early days (less than 20 years ago) there was a lot of extra capacity on the west coast. Those days are gone IMO. Edmonton and Vancouver rode the early boom in containerization.

http://www.pacificgatewayportal.com/irpt/reports/may06_container.pdf

Vancouver is now handling 750,000 TEU of full containers with 89,000 empties. That is a 20% increase.

It has not caught up with Montreal yet which is in the "exclusive" over one million club.

http://www.pacificgatewayportal.com/irpt/reports/2004_CargoCountry.pdf

Canada is second highest inbound traffic in Vancouver.

Interesting that we do not have the rail capacity to ship more from east to west.

I notice more than 40% of outbound cargo is coal. Most of the rest are natural resources.

There is our "problem" as clear as one can make it.

Interesting to read all this hype about the Vanvouver port and then look at the stats.

For the years 1997 to 2005, the highest year was 2000 when 76.6 million tonnes were handled. In 2005 it was 76.5 million which is thge second highest year. The lowest was in 2002 with 62.8 million. The "growth" from 1997 to 2005 was a mere 6.2% over a 5 year period.

What's all the hoopla about? The total traffic has changed very little from the looks of it. The customers have changed.

that should read 8 year period ....

It seems when we get some business from China and buy it in Walmart or some other store we seem to think that it is new business. Most of this business was made in the 1960's 1970's etc. Firstly in Japan, then Taiwan, then Southeast Asia, (Also Mexico) and now last China. This is for the most part not new business, but the same business being manufactured in a different part of the world.(Cheap wages)

I can remember shopping in the 60's and 70's when everything you bought was made in Japan. Where is in now? You hardly ever see it.

As for BC Rail you must read their yearly reports, or listen to their spin doctors, or you have some sort of Union affiliation, as these are the only people who think that BC Rail was ever a viable railway.

If you look at all the Money poured into this Railway by the Governments in the last 40 years, and the amount of money generated by this Railway, you will come up with a net loss. They had some good years with the coal from Tumbler Ridge, however this money went to offset the losses from other divisions, not the least of which was their Intermodal Service which never made a red cent in 20 years of operation.

BC Rail was overstaffed, underworked, service impaired, and unprofitable, however having said that, I would still prefer to have it as it was, as opposed to working with the CN who is understaffed, overworked, service impaired, and profitable.