BRAMPTON, Ont. — CN Rail says the increased trucker turn times experienced at CN’s Brampton Intermodal Terminal (BIT) since July 1 are directly related to lack of weekend pick-ups causing high volumes on Monday and Tuesday mornings.

"We are continuing our efforts to improve the BIT, however; we are not seeing any significant improvement in the volume of containers handled overnight and on weekends," stated Clarke Trolley, Terminal Manager, Brampton Intermodal, in a letter to customers. "This week in particular, where lack of weekend pickups followed a long weekend, resulted that on Monday morning BIT had over 2200 Import containers on the ground. This is 600 or over 37.5% more units compared to an average Monday morning."

Trolley added that with such a volume of containers in its limited ground space, BIT is forced to stack containers 3 high and 5 wide and this high density stacking of containers means an exponential increase in the number of lifts required to serve each trucker with the container they are here to pick up.

Specifically, an increase from an average of 2 lifts per container on a usual Monday morning to an average of over 5 lifts per container this week has resulted. This problem compounds itself, Trolley states, because BIT resources are utilized more to serve truckers picking up containers and less to grounding and reloading containers to and from trains. This causes increased wait time for truckers who are bringing export units into the Terminal, to go from their chassis to the train.

"We will continue to make adjustments to the Storage Tariff as incentive for Shippers and the Cartage Community to perform container pickups on the weekends and nights. If weekend pickups do not increase, we will continue to be faced with container volumes similar to this past Monday morning and throughout this week," Trolley states.

He added that the terminal will be introducing more process improvements during the next 3-6 weeks.

"We are confident these process changes will improve trucker service on nights and weekends as well as position us to better serve the same volume of truckers more efficiently during the day," Trolley stated.

But Trolley also wants the trucking community to continue to work with the shippers and customers to increase the number of units handled on weekends and nights and remain patient on the days when the Terminal is slower servicing you because of high volumes..