Small but resilient, the Port of Cleveland targets more rail business

By Grace Renderman, Associate Editor 

The Port of Cleveland provides one of the only regular import-export container services out of the more than 100 commercial seaports on the Great Lakes. A route that reaches Antwerp, Belgium, has been the port’s flagship container service since 2021.  

Rail plays a key role at the port, which is served by CSX and Norfolk Southern Railway; switching and indexing is provided by the Cleveland and Cuyahoga Railway, a subsidiary of OmniTRAX Inc. General cargo is moved on a double-loop track a little more than a mile long, which connects all rail infrastructure at the port and enables it to handle cargo in multiple parts of the property. 

The Port of Cleveland processed just under 10,000 20-foot equivalent units in 2022, which is double the total it recorded in 2021, says Chief Commercial Officer Dave Gutheil. 

When Gutheil joined the port as vice president of maritime and logistics in 2010, the port had the two Class I connections, but they weren’t connected, so “they couldn’t go beyond their tracks,” Gutheil says. “We saw that as being an obvious hindrance to developing more rail business.” 

The port completed a $4.5 million project to loop the track together and create a more efficient system. The loop officially opened for business in 2012. It was the port’s largest construction project in a decade. 

“Now, both CSX and NS have access to everything. That’s proved valuable because we can handle rail cargo on different parts of our property through either Class I railroad,” Gutheil says. 

The port plans to continue improving its infrastructure — witness a $22 million dock rehabilitation project to rebuild and upgrade three docks that hadn’t been renovated since the 1960s. Some of the track on those berths has been replaced, Gutheil says. The project is scheduled for completion in May. 

A more ‘viable option’ 

The expansion effort also calls for recruiting new clients. Currently, the port primarily is focusing on marketing the benefits of lower door-to-door transit times through Cleveland — routes between the U.S. Midwest and North/Central Europe clock in at under an average transit time of 20 days, faster than coastal ports that are facing congestion and a lack of truck drivers, Gutheil says. 

“I think some of them are starting to realize that we and other inland ports on the Great Lakes are a viable option,” he says. 

The partnership with Dutch ocean carrier Spliethoff, which heads the Cleveland-Antwerp route, has powered much of the port’s cargo growth in the last year. 

And with elongated labor talks and other supply-chain slogs ongoing at West Coast ports, some freight forwarders and logistics companies are looking elsewhere, such as the Midwest, he says. They’re in search of “the path of least resistance,” Gutheil says. 

“We have plenty of capability and infrastructure and potential business in place to do more with both NS and CSX,” he adds. “And that’s what we’ll continue to try to do.” 

Historically, the port has processed noncontainerized steel, inbound Canadian steel and oversize cargo, Gutheil says. NS also helms a limestone cargo service there through the separate Cleveland Bulk Terminal, and later this spring, the port will begin handling imported bulk liquids transloaded directly from vessel to rail car for Erie Tropical Resources, which is about 30 miles east of Cleveland. That’ll add up to between 100 and 150 rail cars per month, Gutheil estimates. 

“We’ve always tried to do as much as we can to diversify the cargo base that we have,” he says.