Saint John’s New Trade Frontier
Tracks, trucks, and trade: The port city is building a new logistics future that will require significant coordination across the region – and cooperation closer to home
When the Santa Rosa docked at the Port of Saint John in March 2025, she marked a turning point in the city’s ambitions to become a player in global shipping. Part of the Gemini Corporation’s transatlantic rotation, the 300-metre-long Santa Rosa was the largest container ship ever to call at the port.
The vessel’s arrival signalled Saint John’s growing role in global container shipping, but securing that role depends on how quickly and efficiently cargo moves inland.
The Gemini call is a test of the port’s multimodal efficiency. The cooperation promises 90 per cent-plus schedule reliability through a hub-and-spoke model. Saint John’s role is to deliver goods swiftly inland, which means its long-term value hinges on the performance of its intermodal systems.
Douglas Smith, CEO of DP World Canada, says Saint John’s growing multimodal capabilities give it the potential to evolve into a specialised regional hub, particularly for high-value and temperature-sensitive goods. And when the pirate threats on the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden have eased, renewed Suez transit could mean the addition of Asian shipping through Europe, which in turn could mean larger Gemini vessels headed on to Saint John port.
In a world of volatile trade flows and supply chain disruptions, predictability and resilience often matter more than scale.
“CPKC really challenged us to expand,” said Port CEO Craig Bell Estabrooks. “Little did we know at the time of the original expansion plans that we would be part of this broad North American intermodal network.”
Americold’s entry into the market reflects Saint John’s growing credibility. Cold-chain cargo that previously bypassed the port is now part of its portfolio. However, securing that growth depends less on cranes and more on how fast containers move inland. Saint John’s greatest asset may lie in its inland reach, if the supporting infrastructure can keep pace.
On the move
Saint John’s inland reach is rare: served by CN’s transcontinental line, CSX’s U.S. Midwest routes, and CPKC’s corridor to Mexico, the Port Saint John gives shippers a dynamic alternative to congested U.S. East and West Coast ports, provided that inland rail dwell times speed up. Future service levels will depend on sustained volumes and infrastructure readiness.
"While I care about berth productivity on the vessel, we care about turnaround, and the railways care about feet per day. The customer cares how long it takes to get from point A to point B," says Smith of DP World.
Rail operators are watching closely. “We believe we have models that can rapidly scale to meet the demands of customers and shippers,” said Tom Bateman, CN’s Manager of Public Affairs.
“We are ready to rapidly deploy a new service to Port Saint John to meet demand as it occurs. Recent shipments of potash from Saskatchewan through Saint John are a good example... we can adjust our service plans as they are required by customers,” Bateman said.
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Saint John’s corridor may also benefit from the railways’ improved climate profile. CN, for instance, is piloting renewable diesel use and cutting emissions, attributes that matter to European and North American importers increasingly required to meet carbon disclosure rules.
“To reduce our rail carbon footprint, we are focused on five key strategic areas: fleet renewal, innovative technologies, big data, operating practices, and cleaner fuels,” said Bateman.
However, green credentials alone won’t solve the physical chokepoints that complicate the city’s ambitions. Simms Corner remains a tangled convergence of residential traffic, truck routes and rail crossings.
“It's complex. There's CN rail crossings; there's CPKC rail crossings. You've got a lot of residential; you've got a lot of commercial, and you've got a lot of industrial,” said the Port’s Bell Estabrooks. “It's a tough problem.”
Multimodal cargo volumes could grow fivefold in the coming years, adding significantly to rail traffic. Without improved infrastructure at Simms Corner, inland movement could bottleneck before it builds momentum.
For them to come, more needs to be built
Simms Corner is not the only infrastructure investment perplexing the city. As container traffic increases, Saint John has been aiming to improve its logistics offerings.
“We’ve seen a significant public investment made in the port to increase its capacity and capabilities,” said Andrew Beckett, CEO of Envision Saint John. “We wanted to explore... whether we could attract light manufacturing or other opportunities because of the traffic coming through the port.”
In 2024, Envision Saint John hired Deloitte to evaluate the feasibility of building a logistics park near the port with rail access on the West Side. Deloitte concluded that a new multimodal park near the port was unworkable because of land use conflicts and cost.
Subsequently, the city is refocusing on Lorneville Industrial Park. The site offers hundreds of acres of industrial land – a rarity in Atlantic Canada – though it lacks direct rail access.
Beckett says Saint John hopes to attract logistics investments tied to the green energy transition, including battery supply chains. “There could be some interesting branding that went along with that, to try to attract industries in that kind of space.”
Preparing sites like Lorneville is only part of the equation. Saint John’s success will depend equally on how well it coordinates with other Atlantic gateways.
For Saint John to succeed as a regional logistics hub, it must think beyond its boundaries, says DP World’s Smith. “Saint John, Halifax, and Montreal are three independent locations with very different value propositions, and all three are needed for Canada.”
Global shippers, Smith stressed, want seamless inland systems, not fragmented regional plays.
“This is a Canada-wide piece, and I think that’s an important part,” he said. “Saint John’s unique value proposition is what will keep it growing. But we must work this as an ecosystem, too.”
This view is echoed in Ottawa. The federal government’s $5 billion National Trade Corridors Fund favours applications demonstrating regional collaboration. As Smith put it, “You have to show that government, port, and industry are working together. It can’t be done in silos.”
The inland relay has begun. Whether Saint John becomes a consequential player in continental trade or just a brief waypoint will be decided by the investments it makes beyond the waterfront.
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This is a good post, thank you for sharing it. We've been hearing about huge opportunities here in the city for a few years now and it's very exciting! However, it also seems obvious that at least two levels of government have no idea how to work with residents who already live in this community and if everyone doesn't benefit from this industrial activity, there will be resistance this time around. These projects should move forward, but they need to move forward with respect to the people and businesses that are already here.