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I'm not entirely sure your conclusion is correct. Almost 40% of all US freight is moved via rail. The reason passenger trains suck in the US is because our rail
by hangonhn 8y ago
I'm not entirely sure your conclusion is correct. Almost 40% of all US freight is moved via rail. The reason passenger trains suck in the US is because our railroads are built for and prioritized for freight. When Berkshire Hathaway purchased BNSF, they noted that trains connect companies between the two coasts of the US. It is often the case that a company that produces something is on one coast but the port where its products go out is literally a continent away. Even domestically bound products have to be shipped between coasts because of how population centers in the US are situated. So assuming the US population and industries continue to grow, I think freight rail will continue to be in demand.
- xenadu02 8y agoBelieve it or not, sometimes products are unloaded on one coast, transported by rail, then loaded on a ship on the other coast.
- chimeracoder 8y ago> Believe it or not, sometimes products are unloaded on one coast, transported by rail, then loaded on a ship on the other coast. That is surprising, since shipping by water is dramatically cheaper than any other form of surface shipping, even factoring the extra distance to sail down to the Panama Canal. What's the point of adding the land leg?
- saghm 8y agoSpeed, maybe? I don't know offhand if it's faster or not, but if it is, I can imagine that spending more to get the products to their destination faster could be worth it in some scenarios.
- ceejayoz 8y agoShipping via Panama doubles the distance, and it's probably half the speed as well. Some products will likely benefit from shaving off two or three weeks from China to the EU.
- pedrosorio 8y agoWhy would you ever go through America to ship something from China to the EU? (which are 6/7 time zones apart vs 17/18 going in the other direction)
- dmoy 8y agoNorthern China -> UK by container is like in the neighborhood of 5+ weeks. China -> US is around 2 weeks, US -> EU is around 1 week. So depending on where it was coming from, might make sense? I dunno enough about the routes.
- SaintGhurka 8y agoMaybe because the canal is too small? Prior to the opening of the new locks in 2016, the largest container ship that could fit through the Panama Canal was pretty small by modern standards. And even with the new locks opened some ships still have to go around the horn.
- zacharycohn 8y agoBecause if you're in Kansas, there is no water route to the Pacific Ocean?
- Pfhreak 8y agoThe original quote was this: > sometimes products are unloaded on one coast, transported by rail, then loaded on a ship on the other coast. Not sure how Kansas is relevant...
- newnewpdro 8y agoIsn't passage through the Panama Canal expensive?
- steamer25 8y agoMy Costa Rican brother-in-law was just telling me that a couple Central American countries are working on new canals because the Panama canal is fairly saturated.
- xxpor 8y agoExpensive in absolute terms, yes. Based on the calculator here: https://www.wilhelmsen.com/tollcalculators/panama-toll-calculator/CalculatePanama?PcUms=13000&LockType=Neopanamax&VesselType=FullContainerShips&ShipStatus=Laden&Loa=366&Beam=49&Teu=13000 https://www.wilhelmsen.com/tollcalculators/panama-toll-calcu... It costs $1,196,397.54 for the largest possible ship to go though. That's for 13,000 TEUs though (so 6500 standard containers) That's $184 per container. Now think about how much a container holds, and per item for sale it becomes pretty cheap.