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Mexico building rail rival as water shortages drain Panama Canal

japantimes.co.jp

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Re: Mexico building rail rival as water shortages drain Panama Canal

#11

Post by nadermx »

bilsbie wrote: post #5

Surely this is a mega project: but naively, what if we built say ten parallel railways 10 ft apart and moved cargo ships over the rails? Or this guy only needs to be scaled up 10X to do the job. Not outside the realm of imagination? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawler-transporter I know the ships are huge and it shouldn’t be feasible but it would be interesting to run the numbers. Edit. Actually if my math is rig…

Or perhaps instead of 10x wideing, just build a permanent bidirectional conver belt.

Re: Mexico building rail rival as water shortages drain Panama Canal

#12

Post by vidarh »

jedberg wrote: post #3

So one ship will have to unload on one side and then another ship will have to pick up the cargo on the other end? So the shipping company has to have two ships, one on each side, and wait for the loading and unloading? I'm sure smarter people than me have worked this out but it seems like this would take a lot longer than the canal (which only takes 8-10 hours vs 7 hours for this train plus load and unload). Granted…

See e.g. [1]. As long as the Panama Canal is at capacity, they don't need to compete with the Panama Canal. They need to compete with long detours:

> The Panama Canal has become so backlogged that the world’s largest operator of chemical tankers has decided to reroute its fleet to the Suez Canal.

> London-based Stolt-Nielsen, which has a tanker division with 166 ships, is charging customers additional costs for the longer route, it said in an email. A bottleneck at the Panama Canal due to low water levels has prompted shippers to divert to Suez, the Cape of Good Hope, or even through the Strait of Magellan off the tip of South America.

And so, presumably, they're assuming that irrespective of resolution of these immediate issues, the Panama Canal won't be able to keep up with demand.

[1] https://fortune.com/2023/11/27/panama-canal-backed-up-water-...

Re: Mexico building rail rival as water shortages drain Panama Canal

#14

Post by Brian_K_White »

jedberg wrote: post #3

So one ship will have to unload on one side and then another ship will have to pick up the cargo on the other end? So the shipping company has to have two ships, one on each side, and wait for the loading and unloading? I'm sure smarter people than me have worked this out but it seems like this would take a lot longer than the canal (which only takes 8-10 hours vs 7 hours for this train plus load and unload). Granted…

Two ships running two smaller loops is no problem at all vs two ships running two longer loops.

Re: Mexico building rail rival as water shortages drain Panama Canal

#15

Post by 8note »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #13

Water shortages? I thought the canal connected oceans and I thought the oceans were rising?

It's sourced from a lake, which allows for moving locks to get between oceans that have different heights. The oceans don't actually touch each other

Re: Mexico building rail rival as water shortages drain Panama Canal

#18

Post by jedberg »

Brian_K_White wrote: post #14
jedberg wrote: post #3

So one ship will have to unload on one side and then another ship will have to pick up the cargo on the other end? So the shipping company has to have two ships, one on each side, and wait for the loading and unloading? I'm sure smarter people than me have worked this out but it seems like this would take a lot longer than the canal (which only takes 8-10 hours vs 7 hours for this train plus load and unload). Granted…

Two ships running two smaller loops is no problem at all vs two ships running two longer loops.

Sure, as long as you have an even number of ships in your fleet and they can be paired off to carry the same number of containers. It's certainly solvable but adds a whole new level of logistical planning to make sure there is a suitable ship available and empty to receive the containers at the other end.

Re: Mexico building rail rival as water shortages drain Panama Canal

#19

Post by dave333 »

bilsbie wrote: post #5

Surely this is a mega project: but naively, what if we built say ten parallel railways 10 ft apart and moved cargo ships over the rails? Or this guy only needs to be scaled up 10X to do the job. Not outside the realm of imagination? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawler-transporter I know the ships are huge and it shouldn’t be feasible but it would be interesting to run the numbers. Edit. Actually if my math is rig…

Hard enough to snake one rail line through mountainous terrain let alone 8. I can see them building a large railyard in Mexico that sorts incoming containers into separate trains depending on which ship they are destined for.

Re: Mexico building rail rival as water shortages drain Panama Canal

#20

Post by bilsbie »

DylanDmitri wrote: post #9
bilsbie wrote: post #5

Surely this is a mega project: but naively, what if we built say ten parallel railways 10 ft apart and moved cargo ships over the rails? Or this guy only needs to be scaled up 10X to do the job. Not outside the realm of imagination? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crawler-transporter I know the ships are huge and it shouldn’t be feasible but it would be interesting to run the numbers. Edit. Actually if my math is rig…

Weight wise it looks feasible. The hard part is getting something capable of transferring hundreds of tons that can also conform to hulls of different shapes.

Maybe suspend the ship from dozens of points.

I’d imagine you could weld hooks all around the hull.

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