Cargo Business Newswire

Thursday, December 18, 2014

Port of Stockton rolls out ribbon rail cargo

For the very first time, Port of Stockton dockworkers were unloading 480-foot-long bundles of steel from a ship and gently placing them on six railcars at a time this week.

"It’s a very, very new and unusual process," said Mark Tollini, port deputy director of operations. "They’re being very careful with the discharge operation."

The Pacific Spike, a vessel specially designed to haul the long lengths of rail from Japan to Stockton, has three built-in 50-ton cranes, Tollini said. A single operator directs the cranes, which lift bundles of five rails from the ship’s hold and onto the railcars on the docks.

No other U.S. port is receiving that type of cargo and delivering from ship to rail.

"This is the first time this has been attempted," Tollini said. "We’re sort of training the workers on the job."

That steel rail, ultimately destined for Union Pacific Railroad Co. track replacement and expansion projects throughout the West, is being moved from Rough and Ready Island’s dock to another part of the island where an $18 million rail welding facility is under construction.

The steel rail, about 10,000 metric tons in all, will be stored until the welding facility is completed early next year and then joined into quarter-mile lengths of "ribbon rail."

"They’ll be ready to go in February to start welding, maybe a little sooner," said Dave Buccolo, general manager of Central California Traction Co. and who is helping oversee the project.

For more of the Record Net story: www.recordnet.com

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