china opens container port at lazaro cardenas,mexico. ksc is rail shipper.
savings there will be cause no unions at docks. cheaper to unload here than the union ports of calif.
will this mean a funneling away traffic from calif to mexico?
maybee china will widen the canal as long as they are here in our backyard ?
that should help much to relieve congestion on bnsf and up west - east routes. more capacity for coal !!
Of course you have to look real hard to find any coal trains on the transcon, once a day or so in NM and AZ
Google “NAFTA Highway” and you will see the rest of this story. This would appear to be an attempt to bypass US ports and their well paid union employees, replacing them with low paid Mexican workers. So, to summarize, we have lost our manufacturing base, our IT workers are going to India, your medical scans are being read by technicians in Asia, and now we Americans can’t even import all the crap we are buying. So what do you think the end game is here?
china may take over mexico/central america.
Highly unlikely when you consider the level of nationalism in countries south of the Rio Grande. They don’t take too well to foreign domination of their national economies. Pemex will never be privatized, and the privatization of CVRD in Brazil was a difficult political battle.
It may be more about congestion than labor costs. There was a show on one of the cable channels about a container port in Germany that was almost completely automated. The trucks used to unload, store, and retrieve containers were robotic, following grid wires in the pavement. I think they still had human container crane operators, but other than that a few people in a control center ran everything else. I seem to recall something in Trains about a newer UP or CSX facility with a high level of automation.
What is with some forum readers this morning, There must be a time warp working, China is already in Central America, Google " Hutchinson Whampoa" the company running the Panama Canal, and other port’s operations.
KCS has been posting publicy on the Lorenzo Cardenas Port for over a year.
It’s too early in the morning for this, my head is already hurtin’[2c]
There is a lengthy article that will indirectly impact this subject. The ultimate goal appears to be to make the North American Continent one basic Union ala European Union. This in essence will allow any shipment into North America to be more or less freely shipped across borders. I don’t want to get political here, but it looks as though it will affect the Railroads. If interested I submit the following web page for review.
http://www.spp.gov/report_to_leaders/index.asp?dName=report_to_leaders
If I read this correctly, America, Canada, and Mexico will in essence have open borders with the access of any N.A. port to any other city in the region. I have been searching for related info on how the railroads feel about this, but so far nothing has come up.
will this mean a funneling away traffic from calif to mexico?
No, it just means less ships waiting to unload in Long Beach, I doubt they’ll be any dent in the traffic volumn flowing thru LB or Alameda or on the roads and RRs. Its already near capacity, with some ships waiting days to unload and containers waiting weeks or months to get sent along. An additional port in Mexico will hopefully allow for a smoother flow of goods thru LB, less waiting and better chance to inspect containers.
maybe china will widen the canal as long as they are here in our backyard ?
Not a chance, why would they? All they need is a faster route to the east coast. Its faster to unload a ship on the Pacific side, transfer it by train to the Atlantic and reload it onto a different ship if thats the way its going since a train is much faster than a ship. At least for now it is.
PS: There IS a plan to widen the Panama Canal, It would double the width of the current locks and widen the canal overall to allow for newer larger cargo ships. Currently, they’re determining if the rainforests rainfall can support the additional water that would be drained thru the canal locks if they were doubled in size.
Something else to consider: No Union w