Seward Seaport Record

Truckers Advocate
Port Commission

Paul L. Gagnon, treasurer of the Alaska Motor Transport Association speaking at the group's first annual banquet in Anchorage earlier this week, hurled charges of discrimination against the Alaska Railroad.

"This discrimination against the trucking industry is causing a bottleneck at Seward that is nothing short of public scandal."

Gagnon spoke before a large representative audience of truck-firms in Alaska.

While large trucks are not allowed on the railroad dock at Seward, on the railroads contention that the dock is not safe for trucks, Gagnon went on to say, that truckers have seen as many as 30 loaded freight cars and switch engines on the dock at one time.

Attacking the railroad for banning trucks from the dock, from the hours of midnight to 8 a.m., and for charging $3.75 per ton for loading cargo between the hours of 5 p.m. to midnight. He stated that wharfage at Seward was increased to such a figure, for local shipments destined for points beyond Seward, that no trucker can possibly haul them at a profit.

He termed the policy short-sighted that failed to provide trucking facilities at the new $2,900,000 dock at Seward.

Charging the Railroad with giving truckers the "runaround" concerning dock operations at the Army Dock, he affirmed that "the Seward bottleneck must be broken. The people of Alaska have a right to equal use of facilities at Seward."

"Now here is the way to give the people of Alaska the break they need:

"A fine modern dock, called the Army Dock, stands virtually unused. On inquiry we learned from the Army that Alaska Railroad leases and controls the dock. From the Railroad we learn that the dock is under the supervision of the Army.

"Now we would like to suggest that the people the tax-paying people of Alaska-the people who in the end pay the price that they demand that order be brought out of chaos at Seward. We think that the Alaska Railroad should have a new dock so that it can reduce costs to the ultimate consumer. And

we think that the trucking industry on which will depend the distribution system on the future roads of Alaska, be given the so-called Army Dock as a truck terminal. And that the

Army Dock be removed from the jurisdiction of The Alaska Railroad," Gagnon avowed.

"And as a second proposal,"
he said, "that is in line with the current administration's policy of getting out of competitive enterprise, we recommend that all of the port facilities at Seward be turned over to the City of Seward and operated not by a controlled government agency, but by an impartial Seward Port Commission."

In closing, Gagnon said that only by working together, by having the same objectives of developing the Territory,
can progress be achieved.

"There is one thing constantly before us," he said. "Alaska will be a great country some day, with a great population and a great net-work of roads, and wherever there is a highway built, be it to Cordova, to Nome, to Point Barrow. or the distant reaches of the Porcupine, you will hear he steady purr of a truck, hauling the goods of commerce and helping to make Alaska a great place in which to live."