Cleveland, OH

Cleveland is a unique inland port because it has a direct international container shipping route through the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway, rather than relying entirely on rail connections to coastal ports. The Cleveland-Europe Express is the only scheduled container service on the Great Lakes handling both imports and exports, connecting Cleveland directly with European ports. That gives the region an unusual mix of marine 20ft, 40ft, and 40ft high-cube containers arriving directly by vessel, alongside containers moving through the broader rail and trucking network. This causes used shipping container prices to be lower in Cleveland than most other non-coastal cities.

Cleveland’s container traffic is also highly multimodal. The Port of Cleveland has on-dock access to both CSX and Norfolk Southern, as well as immediate highway connections, allowing containers to transfer directly between vessel, rail, and truck. Because international vessel traffic reaches Cleveland through the Seaway, the marine side of the market also follows a defined navigation season, giving container flows a more seasonal character than a typical year-round freight market. This can cause some seasonality to the pricing and availability of used shipping containers in Cleveland, with container prices increasing during winter months.