Two ACLs and Fairivew Festivities

 Atlantic Container Line is a pioneering company in the shipping container revolution and a prime customer of the Port of Haifax since 1969. It currently operates five Container and RoRo ships (CONROs) that call in Halifax weekly eastbound and westbound. This fourth generation of ships, termed G4s, are the world's largest of their type and use the PSA Fairview Cove terminal.

Because they are such common sights in the harbour they do not generate much interest. However they really are important and deserve more attention. They were built specifically for their current route, and are the largest ships to regularly sail through the Narrows to Bedford Basin.

Up to four times a week ACL's G4 ships transit the Narrows and pass beneath the harbour bridges - always an impressive sight.

Once or twice a year two of the ships are in Halifax at the same time. Todays arrival (above) the Atlantic Star is westbound from Liverpool. Already in port, the Atlantic Sun (below) was preparing to sail eastbound for Antwerp.

 

The challenge to get both (huge) ships in one photo is a difficult one.

This time the outbound ship moved well out into the Basin to leave lots of room for the inbound. A view from the Africville Park was the best I could do.

Once the ship was securely alongside, the terminal's ship to shore cranes were moved into position and some of the Rubber Tired Gantires (RTGs) were fired up.

The terminal's older (yellow) Liebherr RTGS have recently (see previous posts) been supplemented with four orange coloured Kone RTGs from PSA's South End Container Terminal (SECT). At least one of which, surprisingly, still bears the obsolete "Halterm Limited" label. Halterm was the name of the SECT under its orginal management and was kept when Macquarie Infrastructure Partners took over in 2007. However PSA International dispensed with the name (which had acquired generic stature in many minds) when they became operators in 2019, and most were soon painted over.

A close inspection of the nearest RTG revealed a surprise visitor.

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