CN Vice President Says Back Haul is Key to Intermodal Port In Prince George

By 250 News

Prince George, B.C. - CN’s Senior Vice President of Western Canada Operations, Jim Vena , says if the Prince George container port is to grow it will need traffic , not  just in one direction but both ways .

Vena , on hand for the official opening of the new container facility on the weekend, says the first few trains are heading right through this city on their way to Chicago and the US Mid East.

"If those containers are full heading home on the ship" he says, "you will see more activity on the route which shortens the trip from Asia by about 58 hours. These big ocean freighters want to be full heading home, that is the way they make their money and empty cars don’t just cut it."

Vena  says there is lots of potential "In this region of the province we need to grow our pulp and paper products, our wood products as well we need to look into the Peace region to see if we can build a business in cereal and grain crops."   It makes a lot of sense he said for a farmer to load a complete container of specialty crops and have it shipped right through to China. "In the future we could even see, refrigerated cars moving on the line back hauling items like meat, poultry products and other commodities in need in that part of the world."

Vena is very optimistic "I can see the day when we are running 2 million containers a year through Prince Rupert and when that happens the spin off for Prince George is obvious. "

For the first while Vena expects the shippers to cut a good deal to try and get traffic moving on this route, but in the end, they have to make it pay.  "I think that we can deliver" he concluded.

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