Closely Watched Trains
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Comments
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For an old Bolshevik, you raise some pretty good questions, Peter.
To add to your point: CSX has made big investments to improve its container-moving capacity out of Hampton Roads in its National Gateway project.
The only way U.S. 460 could be economically justified is if the anticipated increase in container traffic will far exceed the capacity added by the two railroads. How likely is that? Perhaps I’ll find the time to do that reporting.
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I’ve wondered about the Rt 460 plan as well. First, you widen the Panama Canal so that gigantic cargo ships can fit through. This lets you bring the ships (which I understand are up to 4X bigger than traditional ships) to East Coast ports. From there, you unload the containers onto trucks? Not trains, trucks. Instead of hundreds of containers on a train you put one or two on each truck?
I don’t know much about this stuff but it sounds odd.
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Baltimore has already dredged it shipping channel to 50 feet. They will be capable of handling Post Panamax ships by August, 2012.
New York has a deep enough channel but has the Bayonne Bridge which is too low for the new ships and won’t be raised until 2016.
However, Miami, Charleston and Savannah are being tied in knots by regulations over their plans to dredge.
Los Angeles and Long Beach load directly onto dockside rail heads most of the time. They claim that their technology and configuration gets product from Asia to Chicago 5 days faster than the East Coast ports even after they are outfitted for the bigger ships. However, the product spends more time over land (almost all rail) which is more expensive than waterbourne transit.
All in all, it seems that Virginia and Baltimore will take market share from Los Angeles and Long Beach for Post Panamax ships headed for the East Coast and with non-perishable goods headed for the Mid West.
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This is a good article on the matter – especially regarding the ability of Los Angeles and Long Beach to defend their market share.
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