CONNECTIONS
New Acquisitions Strengthen Canada Cartage Network
in Southern Ontario
We’re excited to announce the acquisition of two transportation firms based in the Greater Toronto Area.
Topac Express
Founded in 1983 by President Verne Camplin, Topac focuses on working with customers in the consumer packaged goods markets and delivers a wide array of products including pet food, confectionaries, rice products, packaging materials, personal care items and more. Topac has an impressive track record for on-time delivery performance with their customers and has been a long-term partner with them for many years. They have been recognized by Mars Canada as their “Carrier of the Year”.
Based in Bolton, Ontario (just north of Brampton), Topac o ers yard management and shuttle services between warehouse and plant operations, as well as local and long distance truckload services across Canada and the eastern United States. The company has approximately 90 company drivers and owner-operators, and another 30 sta in operations and mechanic positions. They have a fleet of approximately 40 company tractors, 50 owner-operator tractors, and 300 temperature-control and plate trailers.
Chester Cartage
Founded in 1945, Chester Cartage has been owned and operated by the Cummins family since 1974. The company provides dedicated, LTL, and TL services throughout the province of Ontario, with 85 tractors and 185 trailers. They also provide warehousing services, with three facilities in Scarborough, Ontario and one facility in Oshawa, Ontario, and over 350,000 square feet of warehouse space.
Like Canada Cartage, Chester Cartage is proud of the long-term relationships that they have established with their customers. They specialize in industrial commodities including paper, paint, chemicals, and building materials.
Quality acquisitions such as these help us to strengthen the service o erings to our clients, as well as o ering new service opportunities to the clients of Topac Express and Chester Cartage.
How Do You Move A 150-Ton Dryer? Very Carefully!
In our March 2024 edition of CONNECTIONS, we announced the acquisition of The GTI Group, a $300-million dollar firm o ering supply chain services including freight brokerage, transportation management, freight forwarding, drayage, intermodal, warehousing, and specialty trucking for oversize and heavy haul project freight. The acquisition of GTI is the largest transaction in Canada Cartage’s history.
One of GTI’s areas of specialization is the project management and execution of moving oversize and overweight industrial machinery across Canada and the U.S. Recently, the GTI team was called in to help solve a big logistics challenge – moving a 150-ton industrial dryer across the continent from East Moline, Illinois to a new plant being built in Regina, Saskatchewan. While much of the move would be via rail, our customer faced a major logistics challenge: moving the massive dryer from the manufacturing plant over-the-road to the rail line in East Moline, and then unloading it in Regina and transporting the dryer over-the-road from the rail line to the new plant.
GTI engaged the team from their Precision Specialized division. They o er a complete turnkey solution from pre-shipment feasibility studies and initial load planning to customs clearances, permitting, and escorts in accordance with regulations across jurisdictions.
As you can see in the photo, this is not your average dryer. Weighing in at over 300,000 lbs, and forty-one feet long, moving the dryer was a big challenge.
• First Leg: East Moline, Illinois: A modular trailer with 12 lines of SPMT (self-propelled modular transporters) moved the dryer two miles from the factory to the rail side.
• Second Leg: Rail Transport: The dryer was loaded onto a railcar and transported to Regina.
• Final Leg: Regina Saskatchewan: Upon arrival, the dryer was unloaded from the railcar and transported six miles to the customer’s plant using a modular trailer with 48 wheels.
This successful project was a testament to the teamwork, collaboration, and expertise of Precision Specialized. The customer was thrilled with the results of the project, which was delivered on-time, and on-budget.
If your firm has any overdimensional transportation needs, contact your Canada Cartage account manager for more information on the services of Precision Specialized.
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Customer Collaboration Brews Up Success!
CCLS (Canada Cartage Logistics Solutions) is the warehousing, fulfillment and distribution division of Canada Cartage. With over 3 million square feet of warehouse space across Canada, CCLS is one of the fastest-growing logistics firms in the country.
In the fall of 2022, one of CCLS’s largest customers, a nationally known brewer of beer and ready-to-drink cocktails, approached us with a new challenge: streamline their supply chain by expanding our services to take on the repacking of their beverage products. Repacking involves filling cartons with mixed varieties of single-flavour items to make them ready for sale to beer and liquor stores.
At the time, the customer’s repack operations were ine cient and complex. Beverages were produced at their Edmonton brewery, transported to the CCLS warehouse in Nisku, Alberta, then shipped to repack vendors in Calgary and British Columbia, and then shipped back to Nisku for final distribution. This resulted in substantial transportation and handling costs as well as logistical hurdles.
To streamline this process, CCLS brought the repackaging process in-house to our Nisku facility by investing in cutting-edge automation capable of producing and filling up to a million cardboard cartons per year. One machine automates the erection of cartons and trays, while another machine loads the cartons.
The result: a faster, more cost-e ective solution for the customer thanks to the collaboration and creativity of our partnership with them.
Does your company have a logistics challenge that you’re struggling with? Let’s talk. With a full suite of transportation and logistics services and our solutions engineering team, we can help to drive e ciency and cost reduction into your supply chain.
Trucking Towards Zero Emissions: The Long Road Ahead
If you follow any trucking trade publications, you’ll know that the topic of alternative energy trucks is in the news everywhere, and all the time. Most news articles are about the electrification of trucks, but there are other emerging technologies including advanced diesel, renewable fuels, natural gas, hydrogen, hybrids, and hydrogen fuel cells. With all the media coverage on new technologies, you’d think widespread adoption of these new trucks is right around the corner. But are they?
The “Messy Middle”
According to the North American Council for Freight E ciency (NACFE), the trucking industry is in what they have termed “the messy middle”. The messy middle is a time between now and when the trucking industry gets to the zero-emission movement of freight. During the messy middle, fleets are faced with several
complex challenges to get to a zero-emission fleet. These challenges include…
• Multi-fuel choices with no clear “winner” at this time
• Lack of infrastructure on highways for refueling or recharging
• Unproven reliability, especially in cold climates such as Canada
• High cost of equipment
• High cost of infrastructure installation at terminals and customer sites
• Long lead times for zoning changes and expensive and time-consuming obstacles with municipalities, utilities, and other regulators
• Operational challenges in optimizing freight movements (eg. slow charging delaying deliveries, and/or inability to double-shift tractors)
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Source: https://nacfe.org/news/nacfe-releases-report-on-truckings-messy-middle/
Trucking Towards Zero Emissions: The Business Case for
Electric Vehicles
Earlier in 2024, Ryder System Inc. released the results of a quantitative analysis they performed on the potential economic impacts of converting commercial diesel vehicles to electric vehicles (EV) in today’s market. Their study found the following:
Based on representative network loads and routes from Ryder’s fleet operations in today’s market and other factors, the data shows the annual “total cost to transport” (TCT) by electric vehicle versus diesel is estimated to increase across the board, ranging from:
1. +5% increase in TCT: light-duty transit van
2. + 67% increase in TCT: mixed fleet of 25 light-duty, medium-duty and heavy-duty vehicles
3. +114% increase in TCT: heavy-duty tractor (depending on the geographic area)
There are some specific applications where electric vehicle adoption can make economic sense, but currently these are limited to light duty, very short-haul applications such as Sprinter vans as well as some shunt and yard tractor work. But for the most part, we don’t expect our customers to make the transition to EV’s just yet. The business case is simply not there.
Trucking Towards Zero Emissions: What Canada Cartage Is Doing For Sustainability
While the industry might not be ready for wide-spread use of alternative energy trucks, Canada Cartage has several sustainable practices in place that are reducing our greenhouse gas emissions. They include…
Eco-Friendly Driving Behaviours
• Through on-board telematics and dash cams, and our online “Driver Scorecard” technology, drivers are monitored and coached on driving the proper speed limit, gradual acceleration and deceleration, anticipating tra c conditions, and daily maintenance checks, such as proper tire inflation
Anti-idle
Technology and Programs
• All company tractors have an “auto-kill” switch that shuts o the engine after 5 minutes of idling. Driver idle time is also reported on a weekly basis, with low idlers recognized for their success, and high idlers coached on reducing their avoidable idle time
New Truck Spec’ing
• New trucks are custom-spec’d for the customer application, in order to achieve the proper balance of fuel e ciency, power, and cargo payload on di erent applications
• Aerodynamic body plating is spec’d which results in less drag and improved fuel e ciency
• Tailgate units have been converted to battery-operated models that do not require engine idling during the loading/o oading process
iEquipment Maintenance
• Our fleet maintenance team performs routine maintenance on schedules that maintain fuel e ciency and optimal operation of exhaust filtration systems; we also extend service intervals for lubricants through the use of di erent products and additives
• For most applications, we buy low-rolling resistance tires for better fuel e ciency
• Tires are re-capped & re-used as drive and trailer tires; if tire casings pass inspection, tires can be re-capped multiple times; we track carbon reductions from re-treading e orts
Route Optimization Technology & Customer Engagement
• We have invested in route optimization technology that decreases planned kilometers per trip. It also reduces kilometers driven by avoiding heavy tra c, road closures, and will only direct our drivers to truck-approved roadways and bridges
• We discuss environmental issues with customers and business partners to develop best practice sharing opportunities; these include more e cient loading of trailers, e cient planning and routing of shipments, and the opportunity to pick up “back haul” freight to fill empty miles when returning from deliveries. Our proprietary “Radius” technology can also identify loading and o oading sites that have excessive dwell times, which can be reduced through collaborative e orts
If you’d like to learn more about Canada Cartage’s environmental sustainability programs, and how we could partner with your company to meet your goals, contact your account manager. We have successfully conducted tests in partnership with our customers on new technologies and would be happy to do so with your company.
A Stealthy Move
Canada Cartage Final Mile made an extraordinary delivery in June. The team transported a stunning replica McLaren Formula 1 model, meticulously crafted by the LEGO Group, all the way from Enfield, Connecticut, to the Montreal Grand Prix. Witnessing this masterpiece arrive at the race was a thrilling experience!
to Conquer Cancer AND IN OTHER NEWS...
Coming
Together
Since 2015, the Canada Cartage family of companies has proudly supported the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre's "Ride to Conquer Cancer". The fundraiser is a 2-day, 200-kilometer cycle ride from Toronto to Niagara Falls Ontario.
Canada Cartage volunteers assisted in pit stop set-ups, distributed snacks and drinks, and provided support to riders along the route.
At the conclusion of the race on Day Two in Niagara Falls, our team carefully loaded and secured the riders' bikes into 53-foot trailers and transported them back to Toronto. When the riders arrived back via shuttle bus, their bikes were unloaded and waiting for them for pickup.
The Princess Margaret Cancer Centre is one of the top 5 cancer research centers in the world. We are proud to contribute to their fundraising e orts and support the fight against cancer.
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