Page 24 - Port of Baltimore - Issue 1 - 2023

CARGO
Storing and Dispatching
the Cargo
The ship’s manifest provides information on what type of cargo the vessel carries, including whether there are reefers — containers that need to be plugged in to keep their internal temperature cool, both on the vessel and within the terminal — or hazmat cargo.
“Depending on the cargo, Customs or the Department
of Agriculture may issue a hold for inspections for pests or other dangerous items that may be in or on the containers,” Schmidt said. “Those boxes would be moved to an area
in the yard where they could be evaluated, or to a hazmat location where they’re separated from the general population. The clerks make those decisions based on the manifest.”
All of the data that the terminal has about a given piece of cargo is stored in the Terminal Operating System, or TOS for short. “Each container is tracked from the moment it arrives at the terminal to the moment it exits. There’s a vessel module, there’s a yard module, and then there’s the data
for the gate,” said Schmidt. “We also identify truck moves versus rail moves.”
Intermodal containers, also known as rail boxes, are moved via the Port’s Intermodal Container Transfer Facility (ICF), which is adjacent to Seagirt. “This will become very important in the near future, when the Howard Street Tunnel expansion comes online,” Schmidt said.
The tunnel project will allow double-stacking of containers all along the East Coast for the first time, and the Port has projected an increase of 160,000 containers annually upon the project’s completion.
Left: Donald Littleton hooks
up reefers to electricity at the terminal. Reefers are a type of container that is used to transport goods that need to be temperature- controlled during shipping.
[22] The Port of Baltimore ■
ISSUE 1 / 2023