Interest builds in Quincy intermodal

QUINCY — To the untrained eye, there doesn't appear to be a lot to the Quincy industrial park.

There's loose gravel on the ground, power poles in the middle and railroad tracks on either side, and about 24 acres of undeveloped land.

But for the operators of the intermodal facility, this is the wave of the future, for the Quincy area and for the shipping industry.

The 2001 brainchild of the Port of Quincy, the intermodal project is complete, said George Gerber, sales manager for Northwest Container Services, Inc., which will operate the terminal, located at 10580 Industrial Loop NW.

"We're in the midst of marketing our services to several of the local community," Gerber said. Those include producers of hay, french fries and apples. "We haven't shipped any yet — as far as the operation goes, we were not in the best time of the season. The hay hadn't been cut yet, apples haven't moved yet, things like that."

Through discussion with the various potential customers, Gerber said the intermodal has commitments coming up for the fall and late summer.

"Once that gets going, I think other things will follow," he said, estimating that the first shipment will probably move in August or September, and possibly even before that with some of the hay shippers. "We're out, we're actively marketing the area, looks like there are some commitments coming along and we're hopeful it will be up and running fairly soon."

The general area Northwest Container is looking at includes Othello, Ephrata, Wenatchee, Quincy and Mattawa.

Before the system could actually become operational, Gerber said that some computer issues needed to be finished, since the system is connected with the railroads and the Northwest Container corporate offices in Portland, Ore.

"As with any start-up thing, you always have a few things that you have to make sure are working," he said.

Gerber explained that Northwest Container gets a release for a booking, of 10 containers of hay released from Seattle, for example.

"We go over, we pick up the empty containers and we set them on the train to come to Quincy," he explained. "The empties are delivered, and we unload the empties and make them available."

Intermodal coordinator Lane Guenther then has a booking from a company, which comes in, picks up the empty container, loads it and then brings it back to the intermodal, which books the train back to Seattle, or to Tacoma.

"It's not a real complicated system, but it's one that once it gets going, once it starts circulating and the trains start looping, it becomes more and more efficient," Gerber said.

He said that everyone is positive about what the intermodal terminal, which currently sits in 16 developed acres, expandable to 40, can facilitate in moving freight.

"In 16 acres, you'd be amazed at the number of containers you can position," Gerber said.

The facility also includes plugs for refrigerated containers for chilled and frozen projects.

"As far as the community of Quincy and the surrounding areas, it's a very huge project," Guenther said. A resident of the area for about 10 years, Guenther said he will oversee daily operations at the terminal facility. "The local community has really backed us up, they're excited, we're excited and it's going to be a positive thing for everybody."

The intermodal presently employs one person on the site — Guenther — but that number will change as the volumes of containers changes, Gerber said. There are presently four people working at Northwest Container's Pasco operation, which is a similarly sized operation.

Gerber said that the future is going to be intermodal for the area.

"Although there are a lot of trucks and everything else that service this area, intermodal is going to be the long-term solution," he said. "One of the reasons is because of the volumes of freight that you can move one time."

It's pretty common to move 30, 60 or 90 containers at one time, according to Gerber. The same amount of shipments via truck would require as many trucks.

He added that the facility wants to work with the area's trucking community, and have them deliver the containers to the intermodal facility, where they will be placed on rail, taking the trucks off "the long haul" of Interstate 90 and out of the congested areas of Tacoma and Seattle. Those port districts are both projecting to ship 2 million containers, a significant increase in number, and will have continued growth over the next three to five years.

"When you get that many containers, that many trains and that many trucks running through an area, you've got to do something to dissipate that, and the way to do it is on the rail," Gerber said.