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Spring 2007
First Edition

 

Opinion on     Infrastructure

 Barge Accident Closes Rhine River Traffic
(Based on CIFFA e-Bulletin and Bloomberg News)

The Rhine river has been closed to shipping near Cologne, Germany, following an accident involving a container carrying barge over the weekend. Over 100 inland river ships and barges have already backed up waiting for the river to re-open, many of them carrying ocean containers to and from Rotterdam and Antwerp.

A 12-mile stretch of the river likely was closed to shipping until Wednesday at the earliest as authorities search for the remaining six of 31 20-foot and 40-foot containers that fell off a German river barge when it listed on Sunday, published reports said. The missing containers have sunk and pose a threat to ships and barges. All possible efforts are made to open part of the river by today to prevent congestion as scores of barges arrive from Rotterdam, Antwerp and Amsterdam from the north and from riverside box terminals as far south as Switzerland.

Container accident leaves 500 ships backed up on Germany's Rhine River
Canadian Press

COLOGNE, Germany (AP) - Some 500 ships were backed up Friday (March 30) along Germany's Rhine River as the search for spilled containers dragged on longer than expected, blocking one of the country's busiest commercial shipping routes.

Only three of the 29-to 36-tonne containers are still missing. Twenty-eight others have been recovered, while one other is secured and out of the shipping lane, said water police spokeswoman Christine Esbach.

The German ship Excelsior lost the containers from its load on Sunday and authorities had hoped to have the river reopened initially by Wednesday, then extended that to Friday.

But by Friday evening, it appeared that the 20-kilometre stretch of the river affected would remain closed at least into the weekend, Esbach said.

"It will be difficult" to find the other containers before then, she said.

Once the containers are found and it is determined to be safe to open the river again, shipping traffic should be back to normal within about two hours, she said.

The Rhine, which originates in the Swiss Alps, runs for more than 1,000 kilometres - much of that through Germany - before discharging into the North Sea in the Netherlands.

NOTE: The river was actually reopened at 8:30 p.m. Cologne time, on Friday, March 30.

  
 
Infrastructure -- The CN strike showed it's time business make our case
Prince RupertDuring this winter's CN Rail strike, our brokers and our logistics staff were kept busy keeping our clients shipments as close to on time as possible. And we succeeded in getting rail shipments across the Canada US border efficiently. It was a stressful time, and we thank our clients for their understanding, and for their compliments on our efforts. 
 
But there was some good that came out of the strike. Although it tooks weeks for the strike story to move out of the business sections and onto the front pages, it got there eventually and politicians, federal, provncial and municipal, were all reminded about how important the transportation and shipping infrastructure is to Canada. With ports backed up, trains late, highway rigs in short supply -- and truckers worried about getting enough fuel, regardless of the hiked prices -- storage yards packed with unshippable goods, the importance of infrastructure was underlined.

ROD... if you like the concept of this story, I'll continue working on it, so the whole story is around 500 words.