Truck drivers may find increased opportunities at the Port of Virginia as officials position the facility to serve as a land bridge to the West.
Upwards of $225.4 million has been earmarked for the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge the Norfolk Harbor. The goal is to make it wider and the deepest on the East Coast, able to handle the world’s largest container ships.
“Bigger ships will mean more cargo. And more cargo means more jobs, development, and investment in the commonwealth,” Shep Miller III, Virginia Secretary of Transportation, reportedly said.
Investments and innovations are also part of an inland plan to make the Port of Virginia a national hub. Shippers such as global ocean carrier Hapag-Lloyd are leveraging logistic capabilities with Class I rail partner Norfolk Southern. Outside-the-box thinkers have crafted a plan to circumvent the supply chain snarls plaguing the Port of Long Beach and Port of Los Angeles.
That’s why another $90 million Norfolk International Terminals investment is reportedly on schedule for a 2023 completion. The infrastructure upgrade would ramp up container capacity by 610,000 units, elevating its annual capacity to 1.1 million rail units. The endeavor would also lift rail capacity by 28 percent, just ahead of the 25 percent predicted annual increase.
“This is the first time I’ve seen an initiative of this nature in an established trade,” Thomas D. Capozzi, of Virginia International Terminals LLC, reportedly said. “In today’s super-challenging trade environment, shippers are seeking dependable ways to efficiently get goods to destination, and this visionary service turns tradition on its head to dependably deliver an inventive solution.”
Essentially, ships offload in Virginia and many will be directly loaded onto rail. Containers are transported to Chicago and, surprisingly, moved to Union Pacific rail bound for Oakland and Los Angeles. Shippers now see this as a potentially more stable way to speed up West Coast deliveries as California braces for another major logjam.
“Supply chain challenges have led shippers and carriers to diversify their networks. In response, our team took a customer-centric approach by formulating a partnership with Hapag-Lloyd and Union Pacific to deploy a new land bridge service,” Norfolk Southern vice president Shawn Tureman reportedly said.
Although officials are focused on restoring supply chain reliability through intermodal strategies, truckers are expected to also enjoy perks. Plenty of newly-arriving containers will be transported solely by trucks, and port efficiency is expected to remain intact. The Port of Virginia touts its industry-leading turnaround time of 50 minutes for semis. That feat was reportedly accomplished by modernizing and automating marine terminals and leveraging the latest technologies.
Going forward, truckers are seeing more freight hauling opportunities at ports such as Virginia and the Great Lakes where wait times appear shorter, and the price of diesel is far less expensive than in California.
Sources: ajot.com, 13newsnow.com, maritime-executive.com
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