A first for Prince Rupert

On Tuesday October 30, the 5,400 teu COSCO container vessel Antwerp arrived at Prince Rupert’s new Fairview Container Terminal, where Maher Terminals began offloading the first of about 1,100 teu shortly after midnight.

The containers, filled with a variety of merchandise for large eastern retailers, originated in the Chinese ports of Hong Kong, Yantian, Qingdao, Dalian and Xiamen, as well as Yokohama, Japan.

The containers were loaded onto Maher “bombcarts” and driven through one of four Canada Border Service Agency’s radiation portals before proceeding to the intermodal yard less than 650 feet (183 m) away for loading onto the rail cars. Meanwhile, Maher offloaded around 600 containers, many filled with paper products arriving on the CN train from the east, for loading onto the Antwerp.