While Prince Rupert is understandably excited about the soon to be operational Fairview Container Port, the good vibes are flowing all the way down to Memphis, Tennessee.
The Pidgeon Park Industrial site in that southern city is set to be CN's staging ground for international shipments, with goods and materials flowing through Memphis on their way to the Prince Rupert gateway to the world.
Business Tennessee magazine featured the developments in the south in their most recent issue.
September 2007
The Pidgeon Park Industrial site in that southern city is set to be CN's staging ground for international shipments, with goods and materials flowing through Memphis on their way to the Prince Rupert gateway to the world.
Business Tennessee magazine featured the developments in the south in their most recent issue.
September 2007
The Global Railway
Canadian National sets a stage for reaching the world via Memphis
By Donnie Snow
For a city whose headlines are so frequently occupied by shipping behemoth FedEx, it's understandably rare that major cargo transport stories in Memphis revolve around much else. But over the summer, the Bluff City made major strides in solidifying itself as a pivotal North American supply-chain artery by bulking up its profile in ground transport.
For a city whose headlines are so frequently occupied by shipping behemoth FedEx, it's understandably rare that major cargo transport stories in Memphis revolve around much else. But over the summer, the Bluff City made major strides in solidifying itself as a pivotal North American supply-chain artery by bulking up its profile in ground transport.
Closing a deal more than two years in the making, Canadian National Railway announced in late spring plans to make Memphis its new staging ground, investing $35 million to link the city's 2,500-acre Gateway Memphis Terminal at Pidgeon Industrial Park to a burgeoning deep-water port on Canada's Pacific coast in Prince Rupert, British Columbia. CN is touting the intermodal park connection as a boon to businesses eager to shave days off shipping times between Asia and America's heartland. The Pidgeon Park announcement is CN's second major investment in Memphis in recent years•the rail company is already well into a $100 million upgrade of its Johnston Yard freight train connection facility.
The developments are turning Memphis from an important cog in the supply chain to a premier gateway linking the Pacific and Atlantic coasts to the Gulf of Mexico, says a leading player in the city's logistics community.
"This will increase Memphis as a preferred destination and origin point in the logistics of supply chain," says B. Lee Mallory, who facilitated the most recent CN deal with the City of Memphis.
Through Memphis, Mallory points out, businesses can reach close to 70% of the country overnight. "You can get from Pidgeon Park to Pusong, [North] Korea, on one rail and shipping line," he says.
Forecasts call for a 10% rise in imports/exports over the next few years, which will press many companies to hunt for a supply route that avoids the already congested ports around New York and Los Angeles.
"Prince Rupert will increase by 200% the amount of traffic coming through Memphis [about 300,000 containers annually], as far as CN is concerned," Pete Aviotti, a spokesman for Mayor Willie Herenton's office, says. "As far as New York and Los Angeles, Prince Rupert, with shipments from Asia, and specifically China, is two days shorter coming to Memphis than any other port."
This is extremely advantageous to local business, Mallory points out, adding that it will offer another transcontinental opportunity for cotton and other commodities produced in the Midsouth area to get from the farms in Mississippi to the factories in China.
"Memphis has all it needs to succeed—the world is waiting for our cotton."
No comments:
Post a Comment