1435mm: Actually, the railroad I mentioned, the Milwaukee Road, completed their transcon in 1909. Just as the line was begining to come into element and establish itself the panama canal opened and took away much of the traffic that would have moved on the line. This is a case of the rr not having any business because the line just opened up. NP and UP were more established at that time and I think they were able to absorb the loss, although it was painful. The Milwaukee never fully recovered.
Don't take my word for it. Jim Scribbons mentions it in his book about the Milwaukee Road, and I think even the company annual reports for the period talk about the affects the canal was having on the ability to maximize the traffic potential of the pacific coast extension.
So they make the Canal bigger? That is good.
Intermodals on land between the west and east coast in boxes single and double stack has only been around a limited time.
There is enough domestic freight to sustain this in containers. I remember JB hunt had many yards dedicated to this work. That revenue outstrips traditional over the road revenue.
I support the expansion of the canal. If they can enlarge it and possibly create multiuple pathways to sustain natural disaster, war time destruction and ever expanding sizes of civilian and military vessals.
A simple shipping casulty in the canal today will close the Panama crossing and force shipping to round the Cape Horn which is not really a good option.
solzrules wrote: Just read this in the news: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10627208/ Looks like the people of Panama are going to expand the canal by 2015. A couple of comments: When the original canal was completed in 1914 it proved to be a major competitor for transcon railroads in the US. All transcons lost some business to it, and it put some rrs on a precarious footing right after their new rr line was built (Milwaukee Road). The Milwakee Road eventually lost their transcon due to a lack of business, some would argue because of the completion of the Panama Canal. Translated in to today's markets: if the canal were upgraded to accommodate the big container ships on the seas today, would this cut into BNSF and UP's transcon intermodal franchise? Would this have a chilling effect on capitol expenditures on infrastructure that the rr's are planning for in the next couple of years?
Just read this in the news:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10627208/
Looks like the people of Panama are going to expand the canal by 2015.
A couple of comments: When the original canal was completed in 1914 it proved to be a major competitor for transcon railroads in the US. All transcons lost some business to it, and it put some rrs on a precarious footing right after their new rr line was built (Milwaukee Road). The Milwakee Road eventually lost their transcon due to a lack of business, some would argue because of the completion of the Panama Canal.
Translated in to today's markets: if the canal were upgraded to accommodate the big container ships on the seas today, would this cut into BNSF and UP's transcon intermodal franchise? Would this have a chilling effect on capitol expenditures on infrastructure that the rr's are planning for in the next couple of years?
It hasn't yet!
By the way, how do you know that any of the transcons "lost" business to the Panama Canal? Are you referring to business they had that shifted to water? Or new business that began moving at the low, low, all-water rate after the Canal opened -- and how would that business ever have moved by rail in the first place? Surely the annual reports of all the transcons would reflect a big hiccup in their traffic and revenue before and after -- have you checked those yet?
S. Hadid
At least Panama doesn't have all those environmental regs and NIMBY brigades to drag the project out for a few more decades, you know, like we do here in the US of A.
As for what containerships might look like in a decade, it might be that the catamaran principle is applied to current designs to effectively double their capacity while maintaining most of the current hull specs and a single crew. Of course, this "wider is better" concept would make all the world's ship canals obsolete.
The way I see it, by 2015 all the NA railroads will have been "Conrailed" in some form or another, and if OA is still the principal in Europe and Australia, it will have made it's way here by then. Which means the current focus on ISO double stacks will have become obsolete to the new NA railroad marketplace.
That was precisely the concern expressed in the article. Big projects like this have a history of massive cost overruns, and the success of any major construction project depends on the superintedants ability to manage these overruns.
If they expand the canal to handle 'modern' cargo ships - by 2015 won't the modern cargo ships be even bigger than what they would design the canal for today?
Investors earn profit in return for accepting risk. The railroads face risk from this and other changes. As as example port congestion in Long Beach and LA is causing freight from East Asia to the Midwestern US to move westbound via Suez to Savanah or Hampton Roads and then on by NS or CSXT into the East North Central States. Another risk to all involved, especially the Panamians, is whether they can complete the project on time and on budget.
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