SUMMARY

Baltimore is essentially a privately owned and operated port, without the central public administrative and operating authority which is characteristic of major seaports in the United States and abroad.

There has been for many years a strong local sentiment among people in the industry for the establishment of a central port agency.

Several official and

unofficial committees are presently at work seeking to devise legislation on the subject which achieve both approval in local port circles and enactment by the next session of the legislature in 1957.

Several functions normally assumed in United States ports by public agencies, such as port promotion and representation before regulatory agencies, are performed in Baltimore mainly by private organizations, the most active group in this field being the Baltimore Association of Commerce.

The most important local public agencies concerned with the port are the Bureau of Harbors, a division of the city Department of Fublic Works charged with general supervision over and regulation of the harbor, and the Port of Baltimore Commission, the main function of which is financing port construction

and modernization.

All waterfront labor in the port is unionized. The bargaining agent for all the port's longshore workers is the International Longshoremen's Association, Independent.

Baltimore offers a variety and concentration of governmental and commercial services equalled by very few other United States ports. The charges for port and terminal services are competitive for the North Atlantic area.

The greater number of piers, wharves, and docks, along the 40 miles of developed waterfrontage in Baltimore Harbor, are privately operated. Many serve

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major industrial plants engaged in the production of steel, copper, sugar, fertilizers, and chemicals, while others are used in connection with shipbuilding and ship repair, the handling of petroleum products, the canning industry, and the movement of bulk commodities of all kinds. The major general cargo terminals are owned or operated by the trunk line or terminal railroads and by two private terminal operators. There are approximately 22 cargo piers used in foreign and domestic trade and 2 municipal piers for handling coastwise trade.

Altogether

the port has 267 facilities for docking large vessels and other watercraft such as barges, lighters, carfloats, and small freight carriers. Thirty of the facilities were not actively engaged in waterborne commerce at the time of the survey, although some were being used for landside activities.

Approximately 106 steamship lines provide Baltimore with regularly scheduled service. Numerous private and contract carriers and tramp vessels also participate in the port's traffic. In the foreign trades, regular sailings to the Caribbean are provided by 10 lines; East Coast South America, 11 lines; West Coast South America, 6 lines; United Kingdom and Continental Europe, 18 lines; Scandinavia and the Baltic, 7 lines; Mediterranean, 12 lines; India, Persian Gulf, and Red Sea, 7 lines; Far East, 16 lines; Australasia, 3 lines; and East, South, and West Africa, 6 lines. Baltimore is served coastwise by 4 lines and in the intercoastal trade by 6 lines. Two lines connect the port with Hawaii, and 2 serve the Baltimore-Puerto Rican trade.

The port of Baltimore is served by three trunk line railroads: the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the Pennsylvania Railroad, and the Western Maryland Railway. Important short lines at the port are the Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad and the Baltimore and Annapolis Railroad. Necessary terminal and switching services are provided by 4 carriers which are either joint or whole operations

by the trunk line carriers or steel interests, and the Municipal Harbor Belt Railroad, owned and controlled by the city government.

Baltimore's waterborne foreign trade during 1954 totaled 16,995,030 tons of 2,240 pounds, of which 3,648,780 tons were exports and 13,346,250 tons were imports.

The principal export commodity during the year 1954 was grain. Over 1,500,000 tons of grain, mostly wheat, moved through the port, destined mainly to countries in Europe and along the Mediterranean. Other commodities exported in heavy volume were coal and other non-metallic minerals, of which 637,110 tons were shipped, principally to Europe, the Mediterranean, and Japan; iron and steel totaling 697,062 tons, which received world-wide distribution; and chemicals amounting to 385,842 tons, destined mainly to Latin America and the Far East.

Metallic ore imports totaled 9,500,000 tons, about 72 percent of all imports. Venezuela, Chile, Norway-Sweden, Quebec-Labrador, Liberia, Brazil, India, various African localities, Mozambique, Turkey, and the Philippines were the principal sources of supply. Petroleum products from Central and South America, gypsum rock from Canada, and sugar from Cuba and the Philippines were other major imports.

Non-contiguous trade with Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Hawaii totaled 422,502 tons of 2,000 pounds, of which 234,076 tons were shipments and 188,426 were receipts.

Intercoastal commerce at the port amounted to 848,270 tons of 2,000 pounds, of which 618,232 tons were shipments and 230,038 tons were receipts.

In the coastwise trade of 7,171,339 tons of 2,000 pounds, divided between 540,935 tons outbound and 6,630,404 inbound, petroleum products shipped to Baltimore from Gulf ports were the leading commodity.

The movements of commodities in the internal trade, between Baltimore and

points on or reached by Chesapeake Bay, Delaware Bay, and the Delaware River, amounted to 1,494,213 tons of 2,000 pounds, received, and 2,039,233 tons shipped. Petroleum products were the predominating commodity in each direction, while the next greatest in volume was sulphuric acid shipped from the chemical plants. Local trade in Baltimore Harbor reached a total of 7,382,618 tons of 2,000 pounds in 1954, of which 78.5% represented bituminous coal moved from the railroad coal piers to the unloading facilities of utility and manufacturing companies throughout the harbor.