We would like to update the following in order to manage expectations during the current situation.
At all three ports, Saint John, Halifax and Montreal, Canada we are experiencing similar operational issues.
The issues are two-fold:
1) The volume of stranded cargo at the ports and the continued volumes received as new ships are worked.
2) The rail car supply has been disrupted due to the strike at Montreal.
For the first issue, the terminals are not operating a first-in-first-out (FIFO) system (because they do not have the terminal space available to shift containers around).
As a result, they are not able to pick specific containers out of either rail or truck stacks. The time they would spend on resources to do this is not efficient to overcome the current situation.
The second issue problem is that both CN and CP railcars are dispersed throughout their rail systems and have not recovered from the export / import imbalances caused by the port strike so railcar supply at all terminals is intermittent.
Any customer requests for urgent cargo are communicated to the relevant terminals to notify them of the priority, but no guarantee or confirmation can be given as to whether they will be actioned. Consequently, we are only able to provide approximate windows of movement dates at this time.
We apologize for this lack of specific information during these unprecedented times.