Crowley Liner Services has recently
entered into a special service contract with the Panama Canal Railway
Company (PCRC), owned by the Kansas City Southern Railway (KCS) and Mi-Jack
Corporation. The contract calls for Crowley to move up to 29 former TTX
double-stack well cars from the end of the Florida East Coast Railway (FEC)
track in Port Everglades, Fla., to the beginning of the PCRC track in
Manzanillo, Panama.
Each of the units consists of five cars connected as if they were one long
articulated car making the total unit more than 200-feet long. Each unit has
five wells capable of holding two 40-foot containers stacked. Once received,
the cars will be added to others already a part of the fleet in Panama.
This new rail service acts as a conveyor belt for cargo to pass across the
isthmus. It has allowed larger ships to transit the canal by lightening
their load for passage and has allowed the delivery of containers to
Cristobal, Colon, Manzanillo, and Coco Solo that are discharged off ships on
the other side of the canal at
Balboa.
With modifications developed by Crowley's Port Everglades employees to the
company's mafi trailers, the cars plus their matching wheel or truck sets
will be delivered to Panama over the next year. Once received, the cars will
increase the container carrying capacity of the Panama railway by nearly
300, 40-foot-equivalent-units (FEUS).
"The greatest challenge we face in these moves is not whether it can be done
or not, but done using resources which Crowley already has in place to
provide the customer a cost effective roll on roll off service," said
Michael Hopkins, Vice President of Operations, Port Everglades.
The PCRC is a joint venture of KCS and Lanigan Holdings, LLC of Hazelcrest,
Ill. The 143-year old, 47.6 -mile railway has recently undergone major
enhancements, which have allowed it to better serve as an efficient
intermodal link for world commerce and complement the existing
transportation infrastructure provided by the Canal, the Colon free trade
zone and the port terminals.
Crowley is well known throughout the industry for its ability to handle the
large and unusual. For example, in recent months, the company handled the
transport of 76 subway cars from Jacksonville, Fla., to San Juan, Puerto
Rico for use in the Tren Urbano project. The 90-foot long railcars each
measured 10.51-feet wide, 15.83-feet high and weighed 142,530 pounds. In
June, the company shipped a 24 x 14 x15-foot water heater from Texas to
Honduras and three bottle washers each weighing over 22,000 pounds from St.
Louis to the Dominican Republic.