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Yoshimura, vice president logistics-transportation, at Florida East Coast Railway. "It's estimated that the larger vessels will impact container slot fees by 30 to 40 percent downward, which means it will become much more economical to serve the state of Florida and other parts of the Southeast U.S. from the Port of Miami," Yoshimura explains. Hertwig adds, "Freight is coming here (to Florida) anyways because
it's a major population center. And, it's also going north to the Southeast U.S. We can have cargo delivered in two days to Atlanta and Charlotte, and in three days to Nashville and Memphis." On-dock rail projects are part of the larger plan to handle more freight,
and Florida East Coast Railway is partnering with both the Port of Miami and Port Everglades to build on-dock rail facilities to accommodate this trend. "Funding came from a TIGER II grant," says Hertwig. The federal
Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery Discretionary program (TIGER II), part of the U.S. government's economic stimulus program, was awarded to the Port of Miami in late 2010 for the Rail Reconnection Project. Hertwig says the four-phase project started with a groundbreaking last
July, which kicked off the first phase of the project—reconstruction of the rail link from Florida East Coast Railway to the Port. That portion of the project is just about complete, with the next phase, the rehabilitation of the bridge that connects Florida East Coast Railway with the Port, ready to start this spring. Phase two should wrap up in September, continues Hertwig. The final two phases—construction of an on-dock rail facility, and modifications to a rail yard to accommodate more intermodal traffic, will round out the project.
Meanwhile, new
Intermodal Container Transfer Facilities (ICT- Fs) are being planned for both the Port of Miami and Port Everglades. The Port Everglades
ICTF received approval in late January from the Broward County Com- mission. "It's a $72 million project. The state of Florida is putting in $18 mil-
lion, Broward County is contributing $19 million, and we're putting in $35 million," says Hertwig. Completion of the project is set to coincide with the Panama Canal expansion project's completion. According to Yoshimura, "On-dock rail is very important to us. We'll be able to take the containers right from the Port of Miami to the rail, bypassing the highways—and the congestion." Furthermore, it's not just increased freight volumes from the Panama Canal expansion that ports and railroads are eyeing, says Yoshimura. When it comes to perishable goods imports from South America to the U.S., changes in sourcing and logistics strategies are also resulting in more freight volumes for Florida East Coast Railway, says Yoshimura. "A lot more food retailers are starting to buy direct from farmers in
South America instead of going through importers and brokers," he says. "Traditionally, third parties in the U.S. or Latin America would book the freight from Latin America and use over-the-road trucking and local distribution to get the goods from the Port of Miami and Port Everglades up north. Increasingly, we're seeing retailers take control of the supply
www.foodlogistics.com
FOOD LOGISTICS • MARCH 2012 27
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