BaltACD D.Carleton Murphy Siding At a meeting with a supplier last week, we were told that the cost to ship a container of doors from Malaysia to central Minnesota... By no means an expert, haven't spent a whole lot of time there but if there is anyplace that could manufacture their own doors it would be Minnesota. Suspect it is featured that the cost of labor in making doors in Minnesota would be too high in comparison to the foreign doors. Products are manufactured to meet a particular 'price point'.
D.Carleton Murphy Siding At a meeting with a supplier last week, we were told that the cost to ship a container of doors from Malaysia to central Minnesota... By no means an expert, haven't spent a whole lot of time there but if there is anyplace that could manufacture their own doors it would be Minnesota.
Murphy Siding At a meeting with a supplier last week, we were told that the cost to ship a container of doors from Malaysia to central Minnesota...
At a meeting with a supplier last week, we were told that the cost to ship a container of doors from Malaysia to central Minnesota...
By no means an expert, haven't spent a whole lot of time there but if there is anyplace that could manufacture their own doors it would be Minnesota.
Suspect it is featured that the cost of labor in making doors in Minnesota would be too high in comparison to the foreign doors. Products are manufactured to meet a particular 'price point'.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Monday through Friday the Wall Street Journal carries a "Logistics Report." I believe they are doing a very good job covering this mess. These are from today:
"
Average number of days inbound containers waited on docks for transport from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach in September, up from 5.4 days in August to the highest level in records dating to 2016, according to the Pacific Merchant Shipping Association
The Port of Los Angeles resisted going to a 24/7 operation because the containers, if unloaded, will just sit there taking up space for a current average of almost six days.
This was also in today's report:
“On any given day, something is out of stock.”
It's a mess. And there are no words or edicts from the government that will clean it up.
Murphy SidingIt's an economic issue. There are lots of doors produced domestically. There are a whole lot more doors produced overseas that cost a lot less, even after you cart them half way accross the earth.*
Before this mess a saying went: "Assume transportation costs approach zero." That has now changed.
Transportation costs for low valued commodities such as coal and wheat did make up a significant part of the delivered costs. But for more valuable things such as flat screen TVs and bycicles the shipping costs were insignificant for the individual item. A factory in Malaysia was "Virtually" in North America as far as shipping costs went.
Ports are the most difficult place to plan for the logistics of shipping and receiving freight.
The shippers want to have their product (boxes) at the port so they are available for the scheduled departure of the ship that will haul them. Port areas have limited storage space to hold boxes for 'the next ship'. By the same token, 'the next ship' when it arrives has boxes to be unloaded before it can load new outbound boxes.
Back up 60 to 70 vessels and there are a whole lot of boxes to deal with.
Boxes in ground transportation arrive and depart both by truck and rail.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
MidlandMike SD60MAC9500 I'll add to the comments on Great Lakes container trade. Not only are draft restrictions an issue. If you'd were to operate any year round service it would require ice class vessels which are more expensive to build. The railroad carferries opperated year around. I think the problem is more with the locks. They would like to keep the Soo locks open longer, but the Army Corps of Engineers wants the 2 month winter shut down to do maintenance.
SD60MAC9500 I'll add to the comments on Great Lakes container trade. Not only are draft restrictions an issue. If you'd were to operate any year round service it would require ice class vessels which are more expensive to build.
I'll add to the comments on Great Lakes container trade. Not only are draft restrictions an issue. If you'd were to operate any year round service it would require ice class vessels which are more expensive to build.
The railroad carferries opperated year around. I think the problem is more with the locks. They would like to keep the Soo locks open longer, but the Army Corps of Engineers wants the 2 month winter shut down to do maintenance.
Yes, exactly. Ice-breaking ships don't mean much when the locks are closed and you can get in or out of the lakes.
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
paulcapsome relief will come with the chinese new year. they shutdown the factories for about three weeks.
The problem is there is no coordination at any port on either side of the various ponds. Ship it and don't worry about anyone's ability to actually receive it and handle it through the receiving port and on to the ultimate consignee.
Get it off the boat and don't worry about how it over uses the chassis supply, railcar supply or the ground storage area at the receiving port.
No one is concerned with the next step in the supply chain.
BaltACDThe problem is there is no coordination at any port on either side of the various ponds. Ship it and don't worry about anyone's ability to actually receive it and handle it through the receiving port and on to the ultimate consignee. Get it off the boat and don't worry about how it over uses the chassis supply, railcar supply or the ground storage area at the receiving port. No one is concerned with the next step in the supply chain.
There seems to be a business opportunity with that.
greyhounds BaltACD The problem is there is no coordination at any port on either side of the various ponds. Ship it and don't worry about anyone's ability to actually receive it and handle it through the receiving port and on to the ultimate consignee. Get it off the boat and don't worry about how it over uses the chassis supply, railcar supply or the ground storage area at the receiving port. No one is concerned with the next step in the supply chain. There seems to be a business opportunity with that.
BaltACD The problem is there is no coordination at any port on either side of the various ponds. Ship it and don't worry about anyone's ability to actually receive it and handle it through the receiving port and on to the ultimate consignee. Get it off the boat and don't worry about how it over uses the chassis supply, railcar supply or the ground storage area at the receiving port. No one is concerned with the next step in the supply chain.
There may be a business opportunity, however, without some level of governmental 'power' from all the governments involved in the various supply chains there would be no 'power' to enforce the coordination.
In the USA during WW I similar internal USA transportation congestion brought about the creation of the USRA. That being said, I don't think that USRA had an responsibilities toward the ocean side of the docks.
The problems of coordination in TODAYS supply chain issues is that it is more far reaching than a single country - countries don't want to give up a single iota of sovereignty in order to facilitate coordination with other countires.
Anecdote -
In the late 1970's railroad export coal went from near zero to several millions of tons a month. At the time of the uptick there was no coordination between the coal being mined and the vessels arriving to move the coal. At one point in time there were over 100 vessels at anchorage in the Chesapeake Bay waiting to take on their loads. B&O's Curtis Bay yard was swamped with coal, but not the right coal for the vessel at dock - a real clusterf.... B&O/Chessie Management implemented an 'Embargo/Permit' system. Vessels had to 'take a number' and supply their loading plans (transhipper, grades of coal and quantity) to the railroad; the mines were given permits to load the proper amount of coal in coordination with the vessels scheduled arrival AT THE DOCK. Curtis Bay Yard had a standing capacity of approximately 3000 cars. The vessels being handled had a nominal tonnage capacity equal to about 1500 cars - therefore coordination was critical in having the right coal for the right vessel at the right time - the continual juggling act. The system worked well into the 1980's and beyond until the Bayside Coal Pier and Consol Coal Pier came on line.
UP is going 24x7 as well at the port
https://www.newsweek.com/union-pacific-railroad-will-run-california-facility-24-7-ease-supply-chain-bottlenecks-1640548
The problem in California with trucks is twofold. First off is AB5 or the so called Uber bill as it became known in the media. 90 percent of all port drivers are owner operators and owned their own trucks. Well under AB5 they're not allowed to be considered independent contractors and most of them quit hauling containers out of the ports in California. Next off is the freaking CARB regulations. You see California requires you to have a 2012 or newer truck to even run into their state and won't allow any thing older to be allowed into it either. So even if you're a place in Arizona that has a container in LA but your driver has a 2011 truck you're screwed as they legally can't enter California to pick-up your shipment. See the problem they're policy helped create.
I read somewhere that there has been a "100-year surge" in people buying stuff, which I have difficulty believing, but I'll grant that there may have been a significant increase in customer demand. Please tell me if I'm wrong, but I think companies ordered whatever their automated inventory management systems told them to order, without any regard to whether they had enough warehouse or distribution center staff to handle the influx. Too many people don't want that kind of job because it involves hard physical labor, and companies can't find enough people to fill those jobs. So, when the containers showed up they couldn't be unloaded, stranding the containers and chassis. The companies don't pick up their delivered containers because they can't handle the already-delivered ones, so containers back up in railyards or trucking company lots. The problem is exacerbated by a shortage of truck drivers, another job people don't want because it involves actual work, plus California's less-than-ideal regulations and other issues. If anyone disagrees, please speak up.
BaltACDThere may be a business opportunity, however, without some level of governmental 'power' from all the governments involved in the various supply chains there would be no 'power' to enforce the coordination.
Having a Secretary of Transportation who was, at best, a mediocre mayor, likely isn't helping the problem.
Convicted One BaltACD There may be a business opportunity, however, without some level of governmental 'power' from all the governments involved in the various supply chains there would be no 'power' to enforce the coordination. Having a Secretary of Transportation who was, at best, a mediocre mayor, likely isn't helping the problem.
BaltACD There may be a business opportunity, however, without some level of governmental 'power' from all the governments involved in the various supply chains there would be no 'power' to enforce the coordination.
The USA is not in the position to call all the tunes - no matter what tune is to be called. At least this Secretary of Transportation is not on the Chinese take as the last one was.
Euclid The real crisis looming is hyperinflation, and the blame will fall squarely on the hyper spending that we all will pay for. Those in charge of the spending do not want to be blamed for the hyperinflation; and simply denying it is not working. So, it is telling that we should suddenly be served up a new crisis to take our minds off the 600-pound gorilla of hyperinflation. And so conveniently, this new crisis, named "Supply Chain," is said to be our fault for buying too much, and also a sign of how successful our economic recovery is; and thus a reason why we should feel good about Supply Chain Crisis.
The real crisis looming is hyperinflation, and the blame will fall squarely on the hyper spending that we all will pay for. Those in charge of the spending do not want to be blamed for the hyperinflation; and simply denying it is not working.
So, it is telling that we should suddenly be served up a new crisis to take our minds off the 600-pound gorilla of hyperinflation. And so conveniently, this new crisis, named "Supply Chain," is said to be our fault for buying too much, and also a sign of how successful our economic recovery is; and thus a reason why we should feel good about Supply Chain Crisis.
Hyperinflation is defined as a 1000% inflation in a year, which is more than a couple orders of magnatude above what we are experiencing.
MidlandMike Euclid The real crisis looming is hyperinflation, and the blame will fall squarely on the hyper spending that we all will pay for. Those in charge of the spending do not want to be blamed for the hyperinflation; and simply denying it is not working. So, it is telling that we should suddenly be served up a new crisis to take our minds off the 600-pound gorilla of hyperinflation. And so conveniently, this new crisis, named "Supply Chain," is said to be our fault for buying too much, and also a sign of how successful our economic recovery is; and thus a reason why we should feel good about Supply Chain Crisis. Hyperinflation is defined as a 1000% inflation in a year, which is more than a couple orders of magnatude above what we are experiencing.
I said hyperinflation is looming. It is not here now. It is still preventable until we lock in the final massive spending that has been proposed.
Greyhounds, Port Manatee on Tampa Bay has a container operation for Bananas. It has handled dry containers on barges for Caribbean destinations in the past(1990's). Also Jacksonville has both ship and barge container facilities. I'm not sure about Miami.
Do not forget the Port Rupert container port in Vancouver, BC. A few years ago they started a giant expansion of capacity. CN & CP run from there to the midwest. Forget about the LA ports move them north and then to the midwest. There are four ports available to unload ships.
BaltACDThe USA is not in the position to call all the tunes - no matter what tune is to be called.
Acknowledged. But having a helmsman that at least knows how the ship is steered would be better than what we have. I believe Nero is currently home fiddling with paternity leave.
SALfan1 I read somewhere that there has been a "100-year surge" in people buying stuff, which I have difficulty believing, but I'll grant that there may have been a significant increase in customer demand. Please tell me if I'm wrong, but I think companies ordered whatever their automated inventory management systems told them to order, without any regard to whether they had enough warehouse or distribution center staff to handle the influx. Too many people don't want that kind of job because it involves hard physical labor, and companies can't find enough people to fill those jobs. So, when the containers showed up they couldn't be unloaded, stranding the containers and chassis. The companies don't pick up their delivered containers because they can't handle the already-delivered ones, so containers back up in railyards or trucking company lots. The problem is exacerbated by a shortage of truck drivers, another job people don't want because it involves actual work, plus California's less-than-ideal regulations and other issues. If anyone disagrees, please speak up.
Those suggesting that this port or that port can bail out LA/LB haven't seen how large that port is, compared to other NA ports.
Backshop Those suggesting that this port or that port can bail out LA/LB haven't seen how large that port is, compared to other NA ports.
I spoke with another brilliant guy that had all the answers yesterday. He was the driver of a crew van that brought a switchman to switch our car in. He said this port thing is going to go away pretty soon- as soon as harvest season is over. He said that they ship all the corn from the midwest to China in those containers. Once all the containers get back to China, everything is fixed. He didn't mention his momma, or boxes of chocolates.
Murphy SidingHe didn't mention his momma, or boxes of chocolates.
It has similarly struck me as interesting how, despite the blatant insistence that chip shortages have curtailed auto manfacturer's ability to produce finished autos, tv advertisments pushing new cars have persisted unrelenting throughout the pandemic.
Something about that doesn't add up.
Convicted One Murphy Siding He didn't mention his momma, or boxes of chocolates. It has similarly struck me as interesting how, despite the blatant insistence that chip shortages have curtailed auto manfacturer's ability to produce finished autos, tv advertisments pushing new cars have persisted unrelenting throughout the pandemic. Something about that doesn't add up.
Murphy Siding He didn't mention his momma, or boxes of chocolates.
Murphy Sidingthe car companies probably paid for the ads out of lasts year's budget
You feel comfortable making such broad sweeping assumptions...often I take it?
The ads persisted throughout 2020 AND 2121, and the current ads feature models that were not even built when the pandemic first started.
I'd buy your argument for ads that ran throughout 2020. Not for the ones featuring 2022 models I'm seeing now.
Murphy Siding I spoke with another brilliant guy that had all the answers yesterday. He was the driver of a crew van that brought a switchman to switch our car in. He said this port thing is going to go away pretty soon- as soon as harvest season is over. He said that they ship all the corn from the midwest to China in those containers. Once all the containers get back to China, everything is fixed. He didn't mention his momma, or boxes of chocolates.
Was the crew van driver Warren Buffet? If it was Warren I would believe him, otherwise the advice is worth what you paid for it.
Preordering autos?
Convicted One Murphy Siding the car companies probably paid for the ads out of lasts year's budget You feel comfortable making such broad sweeping assumptions...often I take it? The ads persisted throughout 2020 AND 2121, and the current ads feature models that were not even built when the pandemic first started. I'd buy your argument for ads that ran throughout 2020. Not for the ones featuring 2022 models I'm seeing now.
Murphy Siding the car companies probably paid for the ads out of lasts year's budget
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