Barges have a significant advantage on the Mississippi & Missouri waterways over rail on any kind of cost basis in transit to the Gulf ports. A 100 car grain train maxes out at a little over 11K net tons of content. I believe there are two sizes of barges 3K tons and 5K tons. With normal tows being 9 to 15 barges with one tow boat crew prices railroads out of that market.
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I do suspect that CA earthquake mitigation is over engineered. However there are differences.
- What kind of earthquakes are anticipated?
- What magnitudes are specified for what type?
- How much movement is expected at each location of bridging?
- What recovery time at is anticipated at any location
- Availability of adding a shoe fly during repair.
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Leaves out the important thing that got rid of the canal boom in the United States, then the Mississippi steamboat era according to Mark Twain (who would know), then the Delaware and Hudson drag operation in the late Thirties. The train can do several turns with a given set of capital equipment to the tow’s one, especially upstream.
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