Eastern Railroad Discussion > Eastern Canada lumber on I-95

What's with all the Canadian lumber on I-95?

I had the opportunity to drive I-95 from eastern Pennsylvania to central Virginia. Many Quebec and New Brunswick tractors with trailers of plywood, wrapped lumber, etc. Many of these were Irving.

Is this stuff so time sensitive it it has to go by truck, or did the railroads just turn it away?

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Lackawanna484 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What's with all the Canadian lumber on I-95?
>
> I had the opportunity to drive I-95 from eastern
> Pennsylvania to central Virginia. Many Quebec and
> New Brunswick tractors with trailers of plywood,
> wrapped lumber, etc. Many of these were Irving.
>
> Is this stuff so time sensitive it it has to go by
> truck, or did the railroads just turn it away?

Lingering effects of CN strike?
 

Bad railroad service.

> New Brunswick tractors with trailers of plywood,
> wrapped lumber, etc. Many of these were Irving.
>
> Is this stuff so time sensitive it it has to go by
> truck, or did the railroads just turn it away?

Interesting ... considering Irving owns NBSR ...

 

Will MacKenzie
Dundas, ON

Rail connectivity from NB through New England isn't great. Could route them through Montreal into NY, but I suspect trucks can haul the loads from NB straight down I-95 in a fraction of the time that rail could. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/19 09:25 by ctillnc.

In the mid-1960s, I worked at a company in Essex, Conneticut. We received truckloads of sugar maple (used in piano actions) and basswood (for piano and organ keyboards) from Canada on a regular basis.

Bruce

ctillnc Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Rail connectivity from NB through New England
> isn't great. Could route them through Montreal
> into NY, but I suspect trucks can haul the loads
> from NB straight down I-95 in a fraction of the
> time that rail could.

This is basically an indictment of Guilford/Pan Am, which has allowed most of the former Maine Central to deteriorate to 10-mph iron (the exception being the parts the states paid to upgrade for passenger service). But it is also true that there is no longer any through freight along the New Haven's Shore Line, and that besides the negligible amount of local freight that uses carfloats across New York Harbor, no freight crosses the Hudson River south of the Albany area (Castleton, to be specific).
 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/19 10:28 by toledopatch.

We are not jumping to conclusions....We are LEAPING 😳

And toledopatch knows full well, there is more to this story than has been told .... or surmised.

Posted from Android



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/04/19 17:18 by cinder.

Today's segment of I-95 took me from South Carolina to Florida.  Lots of wrapped lumber going north out of Florida and south Georgia.  Didn't see any Canadian lumber.

The wood chip pile on the south side of the channel from Brunswick GA is now enormous, probably several stories high by several acres at the base. There was an ocean going auto carrier pulled up next to it.  I'm guessing that was the Hyundai ship which foundered and burned a few months ago