With freight trains as their caravans, manufacturers like Hewlett-Packard are reviving an ancient way to ship products made in China to markets in Western Europe.
The network of routes known as the Silk Road connected Asia and Europe for centuries before fading in importance in the 1400s. Now, Hewlett-Packard has revived the route as a faster, overland alternative to shipping electronics from China to European markets by sea. A look at one section of the modern-day route, now more commonly traveled by train instead of by camel.
Checked the times on Both Posts: eastside posted at 1227Am and rjemery posted at 10:27 AM .
BOTH ON THE SAME DATE. 07/21/2013.
I agree with lake The post response was pretty harsh! [^o)] There have been others who have duplicated posts around here…It does happen from time to time. It is not a firing squad offense.
It simply means that it was a topic that really appealed to a couple of members here…Certain, was topical on these Forums.
Maybe Cacole should have been drinking the ‘DeCaf’ that day, and laying off the fully leaded stuff. Sometimes being over caffinated can make one want to flex their people skills too much ? [:-,]
Personally, I did enjoy the Threads… and am glad they were posted… Out here in Fly-over Country the NY Times is not read much. So my thanks, to eastside and rjemery for calling the material to our attention, and posting it. [tup]
Thanks for posting. I never saw the previous thread. I spend more time in the MRR and Classic Toy Trains boards than here. My brother went to China in 2008 for 9 weeks. Just before the Olympics. 6 weeks of classes then 3 weeks of touring. They flew east to Urumqi then took trains and buses all the way from Shanghai. Then left from Hong Kong. I’ve seen the pics he brought back (over a GB on a 4.1MP camera) and he’s interested in trains and took several for me. The only good engine picture of an older engine he was able to take, I think around Xi’an and it looked to me like an old Baldwin. He did have to be careful of what he took pictures of.
The only bad part about the article is it was obviously written by someone that that familar with trains. It didn’t even mention the gauges just different and “narrower”. It could have benefited from any number of readers here giving it a once over.
Eastern Kazakhstan was described as resembled North Dakota. The Urumqi area was described to me by my brother as being very similar to Las Vegas. A High and Hot desert. We spent most of our lives in Phoenix so I trust him on comparing something to a western U.S. desert.
Version of the article that I read stated that the overall transit time for these ‘express’ shipments was 21 days for the 7000 mile trip from China to Western Europe - that is a little over 12 MPH - I am certain that is EXPRESS for that area of the world for freight, especially when having to change gauge multiple times and the various border crossings. Another item that story highlighted was that once reaching EU territory, the train length which was reported to be about 2600 feet leaving China had to be reduced to conform with EU train length restrictions
An average speed of 12 mph may not be all that slow overall, especially since much of the rail line is apparently over a single track. Compare that time with an all water route via ship. In the US, the last I read of the average speed of a lone boxcar going coast-to-coast was 25 mph. I presume certain unit trains make their runs even faster. The daily Tropicana juice trains from Florida to Chicago and New York City are probably the fastest of them all.
I do appreciate the encouragement received in this forum regarding my original post. I will continue to post herein items published elsewhere that I think have merit and may hold interest to my fellow forum denizens.