best part....
they stayed on the tracks....

How long would that same train take to move from Vancouver to Chicago?

Why would the same train take the trip twice....??

;-)

They asvertise is vy stating: "Rail delivery from Vancouver to Chicago is 93 hours."

What the actual time is, I do not know. This could be average, high, low.

At the same time, this is only one train from Rupert. So not much experience. Could have been slow with all the fanfare along the way. Could have been fast because they wanted to show how fast it went.
http://www.investbc.com/marketconnections.htm

So, looks like there is a considerable saving in time .... *smile*

Too early in the morning. That should have been

"They advertise it by stating"

I think I read somewhere that the benefit is that the ships can get to Rupert much quicker than Vancouver so that is where the time savings is?

This is what it says on the Rupert Port site.

"Situated 436 miles/36 hours sailing time closer to Shanghai than Vancouver and over 1,000 miles/68 hours closer than Los Angeles"

http://www.rupertport.com/advantages.htm#closest

You can rest assured that this train got preferential treatment all the way to Chicago. There would be no fanfare along the way. Container trains are common place between Vancouver, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, Chicago, and are not a big deal.

This train spent 50 Minutes in Prince George from the time it arrived until it departed.

Vancouver to Chicago is a shorter distance by rail and therefore in theory the Vancouver trains should get there in less than 92 hours. Once these trains depart Edmonton they will all be treated the same.

The ship that off loads the Containers in Prince Rupert goes to Vancouver to off load and reload, and then to Seattle, and back to China. Anytime saved to Prince Rupert is lost to Vancouver, Seattle.

The Prince Rupert connection is great for customer specific retailers in the US Midwest, and for return goods from the same area. They will have to come up with some pretty competative rates to capture the loads from this area that presently go through Vancouver.

Havent heard any talk of rates yet. Will be interesting to see what they come up with.

But look at all the jobs that have been lost from when they would have used horses to haul goods. They call them new jobs but they don't consider the jobs (and horses) that have been lost.

Lost???? .. think of all the cars you "lost" over your lifetime .... unless you are a junk dealer, or an antique car collector, you have only kept the most recent model ....

Nothing has been "lost". There comes a time to everything in this world when it no longer works and it is replaced.

Just think, collectively, humans replaced the dinosaurs .....

;-)

Good news IMHO. Even if projects like these only result in a "small" number of jobs, isn't that the point of diversification?

A new project or facility that resulted in hundreds or thousands of jobs, by its very nature, would not contribute to diversification because if that one thing didn't work out, ALL of those jobs would go with it.

The point of diversification is to have many things that contribute to the economy and job market on an OVERALL basis. 10 different projects that employ 10 people each, is better than one facility that employs 100 people.

We seem to have a lot of marginal and regionalized thinking in this area.

It reminds me when the Carnival would come to town years ago and everyone would wander around in amazement, eating cotton candy, and craning their necks at the rides.

Kamloops has approx 7500 Container trains per year go through that City. Citys like Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg have similiar numbers.

Its only in the backwoods City of Prince George, would people try to make something as common as a Container train into a significant event.

Trains of various sizes and commoditys have been running through Prince George for 100 years. Lumber, Pulp and Paper, Coal, Sulphur, Copper Concentrates, Wheat. Back in the early sixties Refrigerated cars with fresh fish were run from Prince Rupert to Boston Mass. and New York City . These cars took approx 6 days to New York.

There is nothing new here. A container train out of Prince Rupert will not have anymore effect of Prince George than a Container train out of Vancouver has on Kamloops.

CN is a Multi National Conglomerate and it will do all possible to kill of all competition and get as much of this business to Prince Rupert because it is in its best Corporate interests to do so. If they are successful they will kill off a significant number of jobs in the process.
Anyone who thinks that this Company has Prince Georges interests close to its heart is living in a dream world.

Sooo... Prince George is going to be treated the same as Vancouver, Palo? Isn't that good news for PG?

Vancouver is a Metropolitian City. It has at least 6 Ports that load and unload Containers. It is served by 3 International Railways Ie; CN Rail, CP Rail, and BN Rail. They presently handle 1.5 Million Containers per year, of which 25000 come from this area.

When the Federal Government put 60 Million into Prince Rupert, they put 350 Million into Vancouver for road and port infrastructure.

The reload capacity of the CN Intermodal Terminal is 25000 Containers per year, which is the total number of Containers loaded out of this area. This is apprx 68 Containers per day. If CN can get 50% of the available business it would mean approx 34 Containers per day. Not a big deal.

To compare Prince George to Vancouver is like a flea on an Elephants butt. Vancouver being the elephant and Prince George being the flea, somewhat irrating but hardly noticeable.

I'm still puzzled as to how something like this can be morphed into a "bad news" story . . . LOL.

Oh I also meant to add, I'm not really surprised at all. It's classic PG thinking. Look for the worst and go somewhere else for the best. It's a self fulfilling prophecy that this City has been living for decades.

No, it's typical Palpou (or pile o poo) thinking. Why celebrate anything. Someone else is going to profit, someone else already did it. Why wouldn't more money be spent in Vancouver if money is distributed per capita. Palpou, you should change your name to Debbie Downer. Nothing is ever good and you manage to try and put a negative spin on everything.

Thanks red2b. Appreciate your in depth wisdom.
For your information 99% of the information that I put out there comes from the Websites of those involved, ie: CN Rail, Prince Rupert Port Authority, Maher Terminals, Federal Government, etc;

All I have said in essence is that when you take away the jobs that may be lost because of this reload facility from the jobs created you could very well end up with a net loss.

Are you suggesting that I should be dancing in the streets because Prince George is losing more jobs

There is more to life that walking around with a silly grin on your face and pretending that you are positive.

Give me some facts to support your contention that this facilitie will be a net benefit to Prince George. Something more concrete than a P.R. Blurb, in the local papers, that seems to be very successful.

People usually accuse others of being negative when they dont agree with them, even if their ideas are based on nothing but supposition, and wishful thinking.

I guess we could call you Andy Upper. We could give you a skipping rope, and you could skip up and down first Avenue drawing attention to all the Positive things that are going on there. Pay particular attention to the three Landtrans Distribution Warehouses that have ***FOR SALE*** signs on them.

Pal, your rhetoric reminds me of an old Everly Brothers song "Wake up little susie, wake up".

The full containers are not for us, and nor are they for Kamloops, Edmonton or Vancouver. The secret to this whole schtick on containers is the opportunties for filling empty containers with something that we have or can make at a competitive price for distribution to ANYWHERE in CN`s world.

I don`t mean the Aisian Pacific, I mean ANYWHERE. Just think, fill them up,turn them around and send them back to Chicago.

If it is doable it will be done. If not, then in fact the full containers will continue to float through in the night, just like in Kamloops, etc.

Based on what I see happening in the market place I think we are in for quite a change over the next decade.

Palopu ....

You wish to compare loss/gains of jobs in a specific industry - rail transportation.

I am not too sure what the merit of that would actually be, but I'll play along.

1. Give me a starting point and an ending point. Tell me why you pick the starting point you did and the ending point you did. (for instance, let's pick 1912 as the starting point, and give me a play by play of each decade after that.)

2. Compare the job category to the total jobs in PG over that time. That gives us an idea of what part that segment of the transportation industry plays in the community over time.

3. Compare the total employment income to the total employment income of PG.

4. Also compare the total employment as well as income to the total tonnage handled locally so that we get an idea of the efficiency change in the industry over time.

As you know, if you did the same for forestry, you would see a rise from the same starting point in some areas until some point into the early to mid 1970’s, and then a drop off.

Then, of course, we might want to compare the per capita rates in this region to Vancouver.

So, let’s see the entire picture, not just a few years in time.

BTW, we should not even be comparing PG to Vancouver since PG is not a port City. Prince Rupert gets to compare itself to Vancouver from the point of a western transfer port to the interior of North America. I thought you were smarter than that to fall for that attempt by YDPC to compare apples to oranges ….

My guess would be job losses for those that haul lumber out of a mill that exports a large percentage of its lumber to Asia. It could be any mill that fills those 25,000 containers previously trucked to the ports in Vancouver that will now be handled by CN from its point source. It represents about a $30 million dollar loss in operating revenue for truckers on the low side. Problem is a lot of those truckers come out of Vancouver now, so its tough to say how much was be local.

The key will be when new industry starts to utilize the infrastructure and create jobs in the process. PG markets it self as a 'business friendly' town where we will bend over backwards for jobs, so its tough to say who we will attract and if we are future winners on that front as well?

PG is the town where industry can say I will create jobs spending $20 million on investment in your town, we just need to poison your air-shed in the process; and PG politicians will all take credit for the feather in their cap and spin the investment and jobs they're generating. PG politicians will even spend millions in bureaucrats and infrastructure investments to subsidize the new jobs.

Other cities think geez if we had 100 new families WANT to live in our community for its clean air, and great quality of life, and they all need a $200,000 home to live in... then thats $20 million in new investment (all of it spent locally as well). In an era were the internet makes new people to a community equal new jobs, and not just new jobs mean more people; then it makes sense to also attract people, and those people invest, and their investments create jobs, and so the cycle goes....

The point being is that PG often takes the short cut to the new jobs, and condemns the future generations to their mistakes. In the rush to get any jobs to replace the forestry job losses expected, maybe we as a community might want to use the container port to attract the kind of jobs that will also attract people, and be a bit more sceptical about the ability of our politicians to focus on good investments, rather then the long term sell out, which is often the end result of their greedy desire to be seen as important in their haste to show results.

I'm for good investments in our city. Time will tell....

Yes Chadermando,just look at all the doctors scrambling to live in prince George!

Thats ok Palopu, we know what you are saying....
Some of us even agree with you.

This whole process has to be looked at in terms of what is available for shipment from the BC Interior. What do we know.

(1) We know that there are approx 25000 Containers presently loaded in Vancouver with product from the Interior. Ie; Lumber, Pulp and Paper, OSB, etc;

(2) We know that this product is presently handled to Vancouver by Rail and Truck. 90% Rail 10% truck.

(3) We know that the Pulp Mills are operating at capacity and that the 25000 Containers were loaded when the sawmills were operating at capacity.

(4) We know that there are no more pulp mills planned for this area, nor any new lumber mills.

(5) We know that 80% of all pulp, paper, and lumber produced in this area is sold to the USA. The balance 20% is sold around the world. Europe, India, Japan, South East Asia, China, etc;

(6) We know that CN Rail wants to get a large portion of the Containers that load in Vancouver to go through their re-load and go to Prince Rupert.

Because there is no increase in capacity, or production in this area the only business available to CN is business that they already have to Vancouver by rail, and the business that they can take away from the trucking companies.

At the end of the day under the present scenario the best we can hope for is to maintain the same number of jobs while loading containers to both Vancouver and Prince Rupert, and I suspect that something like that will happen.

The one thing that could change this scenario would be if there was significant increases in manufacturing in this area, that would load these containers to China, however there has been no indication of this happening as yet. Our Mayor has stated that someone will come along and manufacture widjits, the use of the term **widjits** is usually used when you do not have anything specific to say.

If anyone has any ideas of what can be manufactured here and shipped around the world cheaper than manufacturing it in third world, cheap labour Countries, I would be interested in hearing what it is.

"(2) We know that this product is presently handled to Vancouver by Rail and Truck. 90% Rail 10% truck."
it is more like 50/50

"(5) We know that 80% of all pulp, paper, and lumber produced in this area is sold to the USA. The balance 20% is sold around the world. Europe, India, Japan, South East Asia, China, etc;"

this might be true on lumber but the pulp is reversed- 80% overseas, 20% USA

"I don`t mean the Aisian Pacific, I mean ANYWHERE. Just think, fill them up,turn them around and send them back to Chicago."

The revenue on containers is generated for the container line on the inbound cargo.
Inbound the rate is $3000-$4500 ....the export rate is $500-$800

A container line needs their containers back in Asia asap to secure another import at the high revenue $.
They are not going to allow their container to be moving freight within North America ie Chicago.
These cans are required "home" so much that approx. 40-50% of them move back empty.