Big Day and what's going on

 Despite being the Sunday of a holiday weekend (Monday, October 10, is Thanksgiving Day in Canada), the port was going almost full out with activity today (October 9).

Arriving for Pier 9C with RoRo cargo was the United States flagged Liberty. A 61,321 gt, 19,628 dwt ship, it was built in 2006 by Mitsubishi, Nagasaki and has a capacity of 6,354 RT43 sized cars. It also has a 235 tonne capacity stern ramp.

The ship was originally Wilhelmsen's Topeka, but in 2017 it was assigned to their United States operation American Roll-On Roll-Off Carriers (ARC), with ship management by TOTE. Although it sometimes carries priority US government cargo, it also works on Wallenius Wilhelmsen Ocean's regular car carrying routes. (It has called here numerous times under both names.) 

Its last port on this trip was Bremerhaven. When it completes its RoRo work at Pier 9C, it will move to Autoport to offload cars.

Following close behind for PSA Halifax's Atlantic Hub (South End Terminal) was MSC Poh Lin on the Mediterranean Shipping Co's Turkey-Greece to United States service, via MSC's own hub in Sines, Portugal. [Sailing from the South End terminal was CMA CGM Magellan a 13,880 TEU ship.]

 

Dating from 2004 when it was built by Hyundai Samho, it is a 54,774 gt, 66,786 dwt ship with a capacity of 4862 TEU.

PSA's north end terminal, Fairview Cove, handled the NYK Romulus arriving late in the morning, for THE Alliance's route from North Europe.

At the deep water piers of Ocean Terminal, which has been seeing lots of cruise ships lately (although there were none today), there were two cargo ships.

At Pier 27 it was Onego Duero with a cargo of steel rails from Poland for the Canadian National Railway. The ship arrived yesterday, October 8, from Szczecin.

 A typical multi-purpose type, it was built in 2012 by Jiangsu Yangzi Changbo Shipbuilding in Jingjiang, China. The 6351 gt, 9770 dwt ship carries a pair of 80 tonne SWL cranes. Originally named Pietro Benedetti it was renamed Antonia in 2019 and acquired its current name in 2021.

Also arriving yesterday at the adjacent Pier 28 was the Iberian Bulker a (chartered) member of the well known Lauritzen company.

 The I-S Shipyard in Imabari, Japan built the 23,242 gt, 37,668 dwt bulker in 2017.  I believe it is also Japanese owned, but operating within the Lauritzen Bulk Carriers pool of up to 100 chartered and owned ships. Lauritzen also operates reefers and other ships such as LPG tankers. The Danish company is best known as owners of the "Dan" ships that pioneered winter navigation on the St.Lawrence River in the early 1960s. [See my post of June 11, 2018.]

The ship is provided with four 30 tonne SWL cargo cranes and may also have grabs. They were not visible as the hatches were open and blocked the view of the crane pedestal bases where the grabs would be stowed. The ship arrived in ballast from Norfolk,VA and is loading cargo from the Halifax Grain Elevator. Lately the elevator has been handling soy beans, which arrive by rail, and wood pellets which arrive by truck. From the type of ship and the dust raised when loading, I would guess wood pellets.

These may be among the last photos of Pier 27-28 from this vantage point (bad as it is.) New construction has started in the Pier 29 area as part of the expansion and re-organizaiton of the rail lines and buildings within the South End terminal. A wonderfully vague sign gives no notion of specifically what is going on except that this view will eventually be blocked. I believe the plan may also be to block public thoroughfare in the area too. The present well travelled road is actually port property, and I doubt that there is any established public right of way, despite more than fifty years of public access. Nevertheless the sign must be directed at the public, even though is nearly invisible as it is parallel to the traffic.

The sign is a tribute to whoever got the City, the Port and the Canadian Government to all agree on wording. That is why it gives no useful information, but does hint at the reduction of container truck traffic to and from the port, and between port terminals, by shifting it to rail. Whatever it is that they are doing it should be noted that it is a $48 million dollar Solution. I also guess it is a $48 million gift from the Canadian taxpayers to the Port, PSA and CN Rail.

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