Toronto Ontario - I don't know where the author of the story (Bill Mongelluzzo) gets the figures he was quoting about lack of drayage capacity, but as someone directly involved with drayage out of CP's Vaughan terminal, CN's Brampton Intermodal Terminal, CN's Malport terminal, and even CN's Mississauga Intermodal Service Center (MISC) terminal, I'd like to just say that I have seen no shortage of drayage capacity.
 
On the other hand, my carrier has seen no shortage of delayed arrivals on cans, (I'd like to point out that I am mostly complaining about inbound via CN, not so much if at all with CP).
 
Our drivers have seen an absolute ton of misdirected containers, cans that were to have arrived in X terminal, but somehow would wind up at terminal Y, or terminal Z.
 
I personally have gone on numerous wild goose chases, where CN tells us to pick up at this terminal, but once there the container cannot be located within the terminal.
 
Often the system comes up with a crazy made-up location, or it's unable to provide a park location at all.
 
On several occasions, I was admitted to such situations in the terminal and given free range to search the entire terminal for my assigned catch.
 
Sometimes I am able to find a supervisor in that yard, who then uses resources at his disposal to attempt to locate the prize.
 
After 3 or 4 hours of many sets of eyes helping me search, I end up leaving empty-handed.
 
Not every time do you get help, or can you even find and flag down a supervisor.
 
Some will just zig around you and drive away, avoiding the necessity of stopping to help.
 
Wasting time at container terminals is nothing new, but in the last 2-3 years, the amount of time being lost on many of our drayage drivers has gone absolutely bonkers.
 
Not only for missing, lost, mis-directed, or late containers, but for severe shortages of yard staff.
 
Toplifters, or cranes, if you prefer to call them, have multiple functions within these terminals.
 
In addition to serving drayage partners, they have to unload and load trains, sometimes shuffle cans within the terminals, fetch misplaced cans, deal with damaged equipment, etc.
 
Not only are toplifter operators in short supply, but the crews who directly handle loading securement of containers on trains, (unsure what their exact title is), are often in short supply as well.
 
I have showed up, as have my co-workers, to CN terminals, to find that, yes, the container is here, but not inside the yard yet, or inside the yard, but the train is not yet secured, protected, authorized, from Montreal for unloading to proceed yet.
 
You log into the terminal in 3 minutes, find your can in 2 minutes, then you could be waiting for 6, 7, or 8 hours before someone in an office far, far, away gives Brampton the green light to secured and begin working on a train.
 
Oh, and back to the part about gaining admittance to such CN facilities.
 
CN, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that those with privileges, such as CN drayage and recently-acquired partner Trans-X, can have 8 lanes to zoom into the terminal, while those outside carriers are now relegated to just 2 or 3 lanes, of which usually only 1 or 2 are working.
 
Lineups are out onto the roadway, with trucks taking 15-20 minutes each to gain access to the terminal, while 8 other lanes are seeing maybe 2 trucks each per hour, if you tempt fate and use one of those restricted lanes, you get an "infraction" against you as the driver, and against the carrier, which could endanger your status as an eligible carrier or driver.
 
Are there problems with CP?
 
Yes, there are problems with CP Intermodal, but they pale in comparison.
 
Like one problem at CP to every ten problems you face at a CN terminal.
 
Gosh, I can't wait until CN opens their much-ballyhoo'd Milton terminal, if that ever gets past the wet-dream stage.
 
So while I have only scratched the surface a little here, to sum up, I as a drayage driver, do not see a decrease in drayage capacity, nor has there been any buzz about such in certain circles.
 
I merely seem to see a lot of decrease in help in the terminals that the existing drayage guys have to deal with.
 
A lot more difficulty trying to do the same old job.
 
Anonymous Author.