Several Port of Seattle port commissioners and executives visited the Washington State Port of Quincy Intermodal Terminal last week, with an eye toward the viability of utilizing Quincy as an inland port to facilitate intermodal shipments by rail from central Washington to the Port of Seattle.
The Seattle port officials also met with Quincy port commissioners during the visit to hear about the recent economic and transportation developments that have occurred at the Port of Quincy, including high-tech data center expansions by Microsoft and Yahoo and new major data center development projects by Dell and Sabey.
In addition, Quincy staff provided the Seattle officials with a tour of the Port of Quincy Intermodal Terminal and the Pacific Northwest-Chicagoland Express "Cold Train" Intermodal Service.
The "Cold Train" service is a refrigerated intermodal container rail and distribution service running between Quincy, in central Washington state and Chicago, Illinois. Since starting a little over a year ago, the service has rapidly grown in popularity with produce shippers in the Pacific Northwest, according to Quincy officials, as well as with shippers in the Midwest.
The "Cold Train" service departs the Port of Quincy five days a week loaded with fresh or frozen produce destined for the Midwest. The produce, grown and packed by local growers/packers in Washington state, is loaded into "Cold Train" 53-foot refrigerated containers and brought to the Port of Quincy Intermodal Terminal. At the terminal, the containers are double-stacked onto an expedited nonstop train to Chicago.
According to a Port of Quincy release, Seattle officials on the trip – which included port CEO Tay Yoshitani and port commission president Bill Bryant – expressed interest in how the "Cold Train" service could work with the Port of Quincy as an inland port to facilitate intermodal shipments by rail from central Washington to the Port of Seattle.
In addition, Quincy officials report that there was discussion about how the "Cold Train's" success of shipping both inbound and outbound cargo has effectively turned the Port of Quincy Intermodal Terminal into a key distribution hub for the central Washington area.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
