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Re: OT : Pasco, WA, Amazon warehouses Time/cost and real competition?..
Author: BOB2
Date: 12-25-2021 - 21:34
George Andrews Wrote:
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> No doublestacks allowed over Stampede Pass; they
> won't fit through the tunnels.
> Tri - Cities ( Richland, Kenniwick, Pasco )are a
> 5 hour one - way Interstate Hwy. drive from
> Seattle / Tacoma -- in GOOD Weather. Including the
> time spent to "In - Gate, Ramp, Load & Re - Ramp
> ", piggyback approaches twice that time. Not
> competitive even with chaining up the truck,
> unless the highways are closed.
Yeah, I've had this same basic "economics" conversation with a fair number of "planners" and "politicians" who like to come up with simplistic schemes (like the panacea of "inland container ports") to tell the shipping industrry how to operate in a competitive commercial transportation environment.
And, folks may well see containers heading north from the LA-LB over Tehachipi, or from the Southeastern market, which is a much more time/ocst competitve distance for a rail haul.
Now, instead of trying to micromanage the industry, how about more RR competition, by allowing other competing operations over some of the monopoly routes, as a remedy to mitigate what has become a monopoly or duopoly at most of America's ports. And maybe, things like requiring the RR's to price and operate as a real common carrier, and prohibiting the kind of discriminatory pricing we're seeing. If we did have more open competiton in the RR industry, that would probably be a better way to "speed" up PSR.
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> No doublestacks allowed over Stampede Pass; they
> won't fit through the tunnels.
> Tri - Cities ( Richland, Kenniwick, Pasco )are a
> 5 hour one - way Interstate Hwy. drive from
> Seattle / Tacoma -- in GOOD Weather. Including the
> time spent to "In - Gate, Ramp, Load & Re - Ramp
> ", piggyback approaches twice that time. Not
> competitive even with chaining up the truck,
> unless the highways are closed.
Yeah, I've had this same basic "economics" conversation with a fair number of "planners" and "politicians" who like to come up with simplistic schemes (like the panacea of "inland container ports") to tell the shipping industrry how to operate in a competitive commercial transportation environment.
And, folks may well see containers heading north from the LA-LB over Tehachipi, or from the Southeastern market, which is a much more time/ocst competitve distance for a rail haul.
Now, instead of trying to micromanage the industry, how about more RR competition, by allowing other competing operations over some of the monopoly routes, as a remedy to mitigate what has become a monopoly or duopoly at most of America's ports. And maybe, things like requiring the RR's to price and operate as a real common carrier, and prohibiting the kind of discriminatory pricing we're seeing. If we did have more open competiton in the RR industry, that would probably be a better way to "speed" up PSR.
