Freight broker in Tacoma, Washington

Tacoma's freight districts

The Port of Tacoma occupies the Tideflats, the flat land where the Puyallup River meets Commencement Bay. Its container terminals, among them Husky Terminal, Washington United Terminals and Pierce County Terminal, are operated under the Northwest Seaport Alliance, the partnership through which Tacoma and Seattle run their container business together. Around them sit transload warehouses, intermodal rail yards and lots for imported vehicles.

East of the port, Fife lines both sides of I-5 with distribution buildings and truck yards, and the river valley continues toward Puyallup and Sumner along SR-167. Frederickson, south of Puyallup in unincorporated Pierce County, is a manufacturing and warehouse area of its own. SR-509 crosses the Tideflats for port traffic, SR-512 links Lakewood with Puyallup, and I-5 carries freight north to Seattle and south past Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

What commonly moves through Tacoma

The port, the valley farms and the plants south of the city give Tacoma a freight mix of its own. Typical loads include these four.

• Import cargo transloaded from ocean containers into 53-foot dry vans for inland delivery.
• Building materials, lumber and steel that ride on flatbeds or step-decks.
• Seasonal produce and flowers from farms in the Puyallup River valley.
• Parts, components and finished goods from manufacturers in Fife and Frederickson.

How we arrange Tacoma loads

With port freight, the request usually comes once the container has been unloaded: pallets or cartons in a transload warehouse that need a trailer. Building materials need open-deck equipment and a carrier that knows how to strap and tarp them, while valley produce needs a reefer with a working unit. We match the trailer to the load, check the carrier's authority and insurance, and book the truck around the warehouse's dock hours.

• Full truckload

  Transloaded imports headed inland in a dry van of their own.

• Flatbed and step-deck

  Lumber, steel and machinery that need an open deck and securement.

• Refrigerated freight

  Valley produce and other freight that must stay cold on the road.

See every service we arrange

Storage and transload near the port

Import freight does not always leave the transload dock on the day it comes out of the container. When pallets need a few days before their outbound truck, or a container has to be split between several customers, we look for dock space with an independent partner warehouse near the port or up the valley. The warehouse unloads, holds and reloads the freight and issues its receipts to you, and we coordinate the carriers on both sides of the dock.

Storage we coordinate · Cross-dock and transload · Warehouse owners: join the partner program

Tacoma freight questions