Maersk and Canadian Pacific (CP) opened the new 117,000 square foot, 103 door Pacific Transload Express facility, located in Vancouver, British Columbia. It is designed to make Asia/Pacific Northwest (PNW) supply chains more resilient, flexible and cost-effective. The ability to transload international containers into domestic 53-foot trailers enables customers to achieve overall cost savings (per cubic meter) for domestic distribution, while reducing storage costs related to port demurrage and inland detention.

Supply chains flowing through the facility will be fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) in the retail and lifestyle segment that need agile response capabilities to consumer demand fluctuations. FMCG will comprise 80-90% of the volumes and auto parts 10-20%.

Construction of the facility and rail infrastructure was completed last month with Maersk commencing the transloading operation of the facility on Sept. 1. The first containers arrived at the facility earlier this week.

CP will shuttle containers by rail from the three major Vancouver container terminals to the Pacific Transload Express facility. CP built the facility on CP land adjacent to its Vancouver Intermodal Facility to offer optimal transload services with fewer handoffs and better accountability of service.