Port of Cleveland expects new rail link to move more cargo and attract more ships (video)

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on December 27, 2012 at 5:04 PM, updated December 28, 2012 at 11:27 AM

TRAIN2.JPG Longshoremen load steel coils onto rail cars at the Port of Cleveland Thursday. The train cars rolled almost to the water's edge on a new rail loop that connects the port to nearby main lines.  


Railroad cars rolled up the docks nearly to the water's edge to take on specialty steel from Europe. They rode a new, $4.5 million rail loop that connects the port to nearby main lines.

As they create a switchyard racket not heard on the docks in years, the train cars lend the port an enticing new dimension.

Ship cargo unloaded onto trucks typically goes no farther than local factories. These steel coils from Holland will ride the rails deep into the Midwest and as far north as Milwaukee, Wisconsin, thanks to the greater carrying capacity of trains.

The ability to ship by rail right from the docks is seen as a critical new capability for the Port of Cleveland, the first major U.S. port encountered by ocean freighters sailing into the Great Lakes from the St. Lawrence Seaway. If the cargo can get most anywhere from here, the thinking goes, why sail further?

"This is exactly why we did this," said David Gutheil, the port's vice president of maritime logistics, as he watched a crane lift a 22-ton steel coil toward a low-slung rail car. "It gives our customers easier access to markets."

A cold wind whipped off a gray lake as longshoremen guided the massive cargo into place. The crane operator lowered a steel cap over the gondola car and the team moved down the line of a growing train.


Three recent shiploads of steel will be loaded onto about 160 rail cars over the next couple of weeks, in one of the largest train stagings ever witnessed at the port. Gutheil hopes it's a sight that grows familiar.

"Typically, a lot of this business would have moved by truck. Or it would have moved by rail at a much higher cost," he said.

The ship-to-rail link streamlines the movement of heavy cargo through the Port of Cleveland and, he says, broadens the port's reach.

"It's a natural fit," Gutheil said. "Maritime is the most efficient form of transportation. And then to be able to transfer it to the second most efficient form of transportation, rail, benefits us and benefits our customers."

The new capability emerged in mid September, when the port completed its largest improvement project in a decade with the help of a $3 million forgivable state loan. Contractors laid a little more than a mile of track through the 80-acre port complex, connecting existing rail lines to main lines that speed trains through Cleveland dozens of times daily.

Previously, Norfolk Southern and CSX--the two dominant railroads east of the Mississippi-- had only limited access to the port, and most of the port's cargo moved out by truck.

Old photographs attest that the Port of Cleveland was once busy with train traffic, "back in the 40s and 50s," Gutheil said.

He said he does not know why train service was curtailed but that port president Will Friedman made a point to enhance it after he arrived in 2010.

"When you go to any port in the country, they have much better rail connectivity," Gutheil said. "We have now caught up."

As part of the rail project, the port contracted with a local short line railroad, Cleveland Commercial Railroad Lines, to handle switching operations in the port. The Cleveland Harbor Belt Railroad was born.

With a locomotive housed in a port warehouse, the tiny railway strings together loaded rail cars to run on the nearby Norfolk Southern Main.

Thursday's scene illustrated the potential of the new system. As a flatbed truck rumbled out of the port with a single steel coil lashed to its back, longshoremen finished securing the last of four identical coils into a gondola car.

The train cars, carrying four times the weight of a truck, were lined up in a row of 20 cars and that would soon be connected to a longer train destined for South Bend, Indiana.

The cost of the delivery was known only to the railroad and its customers. But William Brown, chief financial officer for Cleveland Harbor Belt, noted that publicly posted costs of switching rail cars from one line to another--$350 per car--dropped 30 percent after the loop opened.

Suddenly, there is new competition between CSX and Norfolk Southern, as the port has ready access to both railroads.

"That's what we're telling shippers," Gutheil said. "Instead of sailing farther into the Great Lakes, drop off your cargo here and we can rail it."

The attractiveness of that offer won't be known for a while. The Seaway closes for the season Saturday and the rail loop, after a busy debut, will be largely quiet until spring.

Thursday's port visitor, a laker carrying iron ore from Minnesota, would not be moving anything by rail. But with a new railroad reaching the shore, port officials hope next year brings ships they never saw before.

Robert L. Smith on Twitter: @rlsmithpd