Every container we pull out of CN Brampton or CP Vaughan gets delivered one of two ways. Either the driver backs into your dock and waits while you empty it, or he drops the loaded box on a chassis in your yard and comes back later. The right answer depends on what is in the box, how fast your dock can move it and where the container is on its clock. Getting it wrong is where most avoidable detention and per diem comes from.
The driver arrives for the appointment, the receiver checks and cuts the seal, and the dock crew empties the container while the truck sits at the door. When it is empty the driver gets the proof of delivery signed and takes the empty back to the terminal.
You typically get a free window to do this, in most cases one to two hours from the appointment time. After that, driver waiting time is billed by the hour. A palletized 40' with a forklift and two people comes off in about 45 minutes. A floor-loaded 40' of cartons hand-stacked onto skids can take four to six hours, and that is where a live unload gets expensive fast.
On a drop and pick, also called drop and hook, the driver spots the loaded container on its chassis at your dock or in your yard, unhooks and leaves. You unload on your own schedule. When it is empty you call dispatch and we send a tractor, often dropping your next loaded box on the same trip, which is the "hook" part.
There is no driver detention on a drop, but two other clocks are running. The chassis is rented by the day, so every day the box sits in your yard is a chassis day on the invoice. The container is also still inside the shipping line's free time, and per diem starts the day that expires, dropped or not. A box dropped Friday and untouched until Tuesday has burned four days against both.
Live unload is the cheaper option when it goes to plan: palletized freight, a forklift and people on the dock at the appointment time, and a box that will come off inside the free window. One truck move, no chassis days.
Drop and pick is the better call when the container is floor-loaded and has to be palletized as it comes off, when your dock is booked solid and the only open slot is after hours, when you cannot spare two people on one door for half a day, or when the freight needs to be counted or sorted by SKU on the way in. The catch is yard space. A dropped box needs room for a tractor and chassis to get in and out, and plenty of Brampton industrial units do not have it. Then a live unload is the only option.
We covered avoiding demurrage and detention in its own post. The piece that belongs here is the delivery choice. Demurrage is the terminal's charge for a box sitting at CN Brampton, CP Vaughan or on the rail out of the Port of Montreal past last free day, and the delivery method does not change it. A receiver who cannot take a live unload this week and asks us to leave the box at the terminal has picked the most expensive way to wait.
Once the box is out, detention and per diem take over. A live unload that runs three hours past the free window costs waiting time. A drop that sits over a long weekend costs chassis days and, once free time lapses, per diem. Dispatch will tell you where the box is on its clock when you book, so you can pick the method that keeps the total lowest.
A container delivery is two appointments. The first is the terminal pickup: CN Brampton and CP Vaughan release boxes through their reservation systems in time windows, and the slots for a given day fill up. The second is your dock. We line those up so the driver is not sitting in the terminal queue at 6 a.m. for a 2 p.m. dock.
To book it we need the container and booking number, confirmed customs release, the receiving address and dock hours, live or drop, and a contact on the dock who answers the phone. We run our own chassis, so there is no waiting on a pool chassis at the terminal. If the box clears late in the day we pull it to our yard at 7035 Ordan Drive and deliver first thing next morning rather than pay another day of demurrage.
If the seal does not match the paperwork, do not cut it. Call us and your broker first. Once it is cut, any claim on the contents gets much harder.
Many Toronto-area warehouses, retail backrooms and job sites are built for 53' trailers or straight trucks and cannot receive an ocean container: low docks, tight lots, or a landlord who will not allow a chassis on site. For those customers we transload. The container comes to our dock in Mississauga, we strip it onto pallets or straight into a domestic trailer, return the empty inside free time and deliver the freight on whatever equipment the receiver can handle, including a tailgate truck for sites with no dock. If it is not needed yet, it sits in the warehouse instead of on a chassis in your lot. Our container drayage and services pages cover how the pieces fit.
The short version: staff and a forklift on hand, live unload. Floor-loaded or short staff, drop it and call for the pickup the day it empties. No room for a container, transload it. Tell dispatch which one you want and we build the appointments around it.
Send dispatch the container number, the receiving address and whether you want it live or dropped. Same-day quotes at 289-723-2174.
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