Low dollar boosts used equipment exports

posted by bwyker Breakbulk News

If there is any silver lining for the shipping industry in the clouds enveloping the US economy, it's the increase in exports fueled by the weakness of the dollar. For the breakbulk and project cargo sector of the industry, the export boom has generated a big increase in shipments of used construction and agricultural equipment, dismantled plants, old locomotives and high and heavy vehicles.

The trend is so pronounced that some breakbulk ports are beginning to look like giant garage sales -- with every inch of storage yard stacked high wuth used cranes, dismantled refining equipment, graders, bulldozers, harvesters and tractors.

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Carloads Grow at Large Railroads

posted by jnodar On July 16, 2009 Breakbulk Industry News

Carlaodings of machinery and bulk materials rose in the latest week to the strongest level in three months at major U. S. railroads, as freight picked up after the slow July 4 holiday period

The latest weekly rail traffic report is in line with other signs that the economy continues to bump along the bottom, with some idnicatiors that strength is returning bu others showing freight sectors are flattened or moving in an up and down pattern over the weeks.

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Wind Power's Long and Winding Road
Break Bulk News August 10, 2009 Peter Leach


Stephen Donchez feels the pain of drivers who get stuck behind one of his big rigs.

"Motorists hate to see us on the road because we're slow moving and slow down traffic." said Donchez, president of American Transport Systems, a Vineland NJ motor carrier that specializes in carrying massive, oversize wind power components.

American drivers had better get used to the frustration, because they're likely to see a lot more big righs hauling windmill blades, towers and turbines on U. S. roadways: energy economists expect wind farms will produce 20 percent of the U. S. electricity supply by 2020. That means a multitude of new wind farms nationwide.

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