It make sense for goods that sending them by air is too expensive, but they are too time sensitive to send them by ship. It takes a day by plane, 14 days by train, 45 days by the ship. I would expect in good scenario that train would be somewhat similar popular as air, but nowhere near close volume as by sea.
Some price estimates: (very crude, but shows magnitude of price)
Rail is 4 times more expensive than by sea. Air is at least 6 times more expensive than rail, but can be even 18 times more expensive if payload is heavy.
Cost of shipping 40′ HC container:
- by sea: $1,600
- by train: $6,800
- by air, light, so you pay for volume: 4.6 USD / kg, 40 ft got volume 67.7 m3 * 143 kg / m3 ~= 9 tons, $41,400
- by air, heavy, so you pay for real weight: 4.6 USD / kg, 40tf can be 27tons, $124,200
I would guess that this is rolling out just for the PR, the sheer number of trains needed to replace one decent sized container ship just makes this all prohibitive to ever replace much sea freight plus launching when there is a glut of container ships floating around as well, which is keeping the price lower than most ship owners can breakeven. Ok so it's quicker, but it's not that quick.
The only winners would be the goods owners who are winning form short term lower prices - is that enough for a long term business?
For anyone looking for a quick answer, this is from the 4th paragraph in the article:
While the train can carry about 200 containers, versus 20,000 on a large cargo vessel, the trip takes about half as long as a 30-day sailing between East Asia and northern Europe. That will make rail a competitive option when maritime shipments are held up or miss the booked departure, especially compared with airfreight, which costs twice as much, according to Michael White, operations director at Brunel Shipping, the U.K. booking agent for the service.
Everyone is forgetting another option. Say your factory is relying on parts delivered to you by containers. One week there's heavy storms somewhere in Asia and your containers from China aren't loaded. Currently the only option is to either always keep a buffer of parts or to gamble and use airfreight in case needed.
With such a rail option you'll have an alternative: by default use container vessel then in case of a problem switch to the rail.
What you say is true, if we only take into consideration shipping from coastal China.
But I would presume there is geo-strategic interest for China to try and improve its internal and western regions. If we take this into consideration, it may be very efficient to directly ship via train to Europe, instead of first going several thousand km to the east, to reach China's coast.
Agreed. I really can't see this being a success for anything more than PR. If you need it ASAP, you're going to use airfreight. If you don't you're going to have it by sea. I don't see much of a need for something in between those two timeframes. Anyone specialised in logistics care to comment if there is an actual market here?
Round-trip 4 weeks is OK; it will be interesting to see the packet loss rate in this service.
The roads around here (Helsinki, Finland) used to be congested by trailer trucks transporting new Japanese cars from the harbour in Hanko across border to St. Petersburg.
Bothered by the flow of trucks, I asked why didn't they send the cars across from Japan over Trans-Siberian railway? I was told that too many cars disappeared on the way. In fact, sometimes a whole train disappeared.
Now Russia has built a suitable harbour of its own closer to St. Petersburg so that the flow of new cars doesn't need to come to the ringroads of Helsinki (and, I expect, the economic situation means fewer cars are sold there).
China, Poland, Germany, Belgium and France uses the standard gauge of 1,435mm but Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan has 1520mm. I guess they are shifting wagons at the borders of China and Kazakhstan and Belarus and Poland. Or are the wagons mixed-gauge?
It has been reported that, for example, when containers are shipped by a "direct train" from China to Europe, it is only containers, and not the railcars, which move from China's railway network to that of Kazakhstan. At the border station at Khorgos, two trains (the Chinese standard-gauge one and the Kazakh Russian-gauge one) would stand side by side at parallel tracks, while the cranes would move the containers from one train to the other in as short time as 47 minutes.
A break of gauge needs to be crossed when entering Mongolia from China (or Russia directly from China, if traveling via Manzhouli/Zabaykalsk), and then another one when leaving Belarus for Poland.
When I crossed the border on a passenger train from Poland to Belarus and from Mongolia to China, the train went into a warehouse where the compartment was lifted and new bogies slid underneath. All while the passengers remained on the train
Loading gauges might be a problem as well. Parts of the UK rail network are still on W6a, which means the clearance from tunnels and bridges and turns is too small to take standard containers on standard wagons: you need special low-deck wagons where the container sits down between the wheels (so there's extra space between the containers, where the rail bogies are). This isn't the most efficient way imaginable to move goods over long distances. The W10 standard (which allows the taller Hi-Cube containers for refrigerated goods and the like) is available only on a few corridors.
(Mind you, in the US, they use low-deck cars like this for about 70% of containers... the difference being that the US railways can double-stack the containers. It's a wonderful rail system.)
This is about opening up Central Asia to China soft power. Rail is the only means Central Asia going to trade (export/import) anything, and strengthens China's West, Xinjiang, etc.
This, and other geopolitical implications. The 'New Silk Road' effort has been China's focus for a while, and envisions two corridors along which overland trade can flow: the status quo through Russia, and an alternate one to the south that avoids Russia and remains resilient should their partnership sour.
Awesome. Brings us all closer together. Alternate transportation systems for the win. Probably a good hedge against Suez Canal issues and Souh China Sea contention.
That was my thought add a couple of extra passenger cars and a buffet car and you would have an interesting trip and get to see some of the less travelled part of the world.
This has been going on with Germany for quite some time now (years) and is expanding in Germany, so it seems to work. I also found it interesting though more goods are shipped from China, a significant amount of goods is shipped to China.
Not sure about CO2 impact, but one problem is that these trains are running pretty empty back to china (china doesn't want to import so much from Europe by rail). I think they are running 50 trains a year, with a heavy subsidy to make it affordable (half the cost).
How frequently? If this was a dedicated, two-track main line, then standing trackside I'd expect to see one train coming in each direction every 20 minutes. Of course, that depends on having massive infrastructure at each end to service those trains. To see an example of that in action in the US, head to LA, and take Amtrack or Metrolink to Fullerton station, paying attention to BNSF's facilities in LA County. Then, hang out at Fullerton for a few hours, taking note of the number (and length) of trains.
More likely, you'll see one train per day, mainly because of choke points like the Eurotunnel. It's also likely that cargo will have to be moved around at least once, since rolling stock (train cars, etc.) aren't normally certified for high-speed running. Plus, you've got a mix of at least high-voltage AC (for Eurotunnel) and diesel, so there would be engine changes. Plus, many USSR countries aren't on "standard gauge", so you either need rolling stock with wheel sets of different gauges (widths), or you need to move cargo at specific transfer points.
What I found interesting is that it still takes 15 days for a freight train to do the journey.
With the recent $500 billion plan for high-speed rail network in China, surely it also makes sense to modernize this Asia<->Europe track? For example building a dedicated track with standard gauge in Kazakhastan, Russia, or developing a more powerful locomotive dedicated to this.
Ryan from Flexport here. Been trying to sell rail freight from China to the EU since start of 2016 with no luck. It's too much more expensive than sea freight and too much slower than air freight. We will keep plugging though because we think its super cool.
The advantage might come if you regard the railcars as a stream of product on it's way to your warehouse, rather than a single delivery. So high latency, but the bandwidth is respectable once it starts. :)
Offtopic: How far are we from shortening this trip from 15 days to say, 12 or 10 days?
15 days is half a month. But if this could be shortened to 10 days, it is 3 regular shipment in a month.
For someone like Apple, this could be extremely cost efficient. Rather then paying the high price to book every single possible fright from China, they could now do it via train, at least to everywhere in Europe.
I can't find anywhere that mentions the frequency of the service, but I think it's safe to assume they don't wait for a container to do a complete round trip before the next shipment leaves.
Google tells me that Germany has seven freight train services a week going to/from China.
The new silk road is a decent project, but of course it's not purely for China to dump it's products abroad. Besides, I believe it's a matter of time before anti-China sentiment in Europe will be like the American-version propagated by Trump.
[+] [-] jakozaur|9 years ago|reply
http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/06/28/what-the-...
It make sense for goods that sending them by air is too expensive, but they are too time sensitive to send them by ship. It takes a day by plane, 14 days by train, 45 days by the ship. I would expect in good scenario that train would be somewhat similar popular as air, but nowhere near close volume as by sea.
[+] [-] jakozaur|9 years ago|reply
Rail is 4 times more expensive than by sea. Air is at least 6 times more expensive than rail, but can be even 18 times more expensive if payload is heavy.
Cost of shipping 40′ HC container:
- by sea: $1,600
- by train: $6,800
- by air, light, so you pay for volume: 4.6 USD / kg, 40 ft got volume 67.7 m3 * 143 kg / m3 ~= 9 tons, $41,400
- by air, heavy, so you pay for real weight: 4.6 USD / kg, 40tf can be 27tons, $124,200
Shanghai <-> Gdynia, Poland: http://www.transportchiny.pl/ceny_transportu_z_chin.php
Shanghai <–> Małaszewicze, Poland http://gocargo.pl/czy-transport-koleja-z-chin-jest-oplacalny...
By Air: http://www.chinaimportal.com/blog/air-freight-import-china-g...
Container: https://www.searates.com/reference/equipment/3/
Excuse me for non-English links, but that was the easiest what I can find.
[+] [-] samhamilton|9 years ago|reply
The only winners would be the goods owners who are winning form short term lower prices - is that enough for a long term business?
[+] [-] paradite|9 years ago|reply
While the train can carry about 200 containers, versus 20,000 on a large cargo vessel, the trip takes about half as long as a 30-day sailing between East Asia and northern Europe. That will make rail a competitive option when maritime shipments are held up or miss the booked departure, especially compared with airfreight, which costs twice as much, according to Michael White, operations director at Brunel Shipping, the U.K. booking agent for the service.
[+] [-] bkor|9 years ago|reply
With such a rail option you'll have an alternative: by default use container vessel then in case of a problem switch to the rail.
[+] [-] loxs|9 years ago|reply
But I would presume there is geo-strategic interest for China to try and improve its internal and western regions. If we take this into consideration, it may be very efficient to directly ship via train to Europe, instead of first going several thousand km to the east, to reach China's coast.
[+] [-] pasta|9 years ago|reply
I think there are a lot of companies willing to pay extra to get it in 18 days vs 27 days.
[+] [-] martinald|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ptaipale|9 years ago|reply
The roads around here (Helsinki, Finland) used to be congested by trailer trucks transporting new Japanese cars from the harbour in Hanko across border to St. Petersburg.
Bothered by the flow of trucks, I asked why didn't they send the cars across from Japan over Trans-Siberian railway? I was told that too many cars disappeared on the way. In fact, sometimes a whole train disappeared.
Now Russia has built a suitable harbour of its own closer to St. Petersburg so that the flow of new cars doesn't need to come to the ringroads of Helsinki (and, I expect, the economic situation means fewer cars are sold there).
[+] [-] brunnsbe|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] paradite|9 years ago|reply
It has been reported that, for example, when containers are shipped by a "direct train" from China to Europe, it is only containers, and not the railcars, which move from China's railway network to that of Kazakhstan. At the border station at Khorgos, two trains (the Chinese standard-gauge one and the Kazakh Russian-gauge one) would stand side by side at parallel tracks, while the cranes would move the containers from one train to the other in as short time as 47 minutes.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Break-of-gauge#Containerisatio...
A break of gauge needs to be crossed when entering Mongolia from China (or Russia directly from China, if traveling via Manzhouli/Zabaykalsk), and then another one when leaving Belarus for Poland.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Eurasia_Logistics
[+] [-] mattdoughty|9 years ago|reply
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mjdoughty/8502710543/
[+] [-] fennecfoxen|9 years ago|reply
(Mind you, in the US, they use low-deck cars like this for about 70% of containers... the difference being that the US railways can double-stack the containers. It's a wonderful rail system.)
[+] [-] zhte415|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] niftich|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] omegaworks|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|9 years ago|reply
More seriously though, it seems like an awesome rail trip if you can convince them to pull your private rail car.
[+] [-] lostboys67|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stuaxo|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lispm|9 years ago|reply
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2016-07/23/c_135534991.htm
[+] [-] _Codemonkeyism|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MengerSponge|9 years ago|reply
Also, how frequently could one of those trains run?
[+] [-] seanmcdirmid|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ec109685|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdietrich|9 years ago|reply
http://www.oecd.org/trade/envtrade/2386636.pdf (p. 29)
[+] [-] CaliforniaKarl|9 years ago|reply
More likely, you'll see one train per day, mainly because of choke points like the Eurotunnel. It's also likely that cargo will have to be moved around at least once, since rolling stock (train cars, etc.) aren't normally certified for high-speed running. Plus, you've got a mix of at least high-voltage AC (for Eurotunnel) and diesel, so there would be engine changes. Plus, many USSR countries aren't on "standard gauge", so you either need rolling stock with wheel sets of different gauges (widths), or you need to move cargo at specific transfer points.
[+] [-] mtw|9 years ago|reply
With the recent $500 billion plan for high-speed rail network in China, surely it also makes sense to modernize this Asia<->Europe track? For example building a dedicated track with standard gauge in Kazakhastan, Russia, or developing a more powerful locomotive dedicated to this.
[+] [-] thedogeye|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sfoon|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chiph|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ksec|9 years ago|reply
15 days is half a month. But if this could be shortened to 10 days, it is 3 regular shipment in a month.
For someone like Apple, this could be extremely cost efficient. Rather then paying the high price to book every single possible fright from China, they could now do it via train, at least to everywhere in Europe.
[+] [-] goatforce5|9 years ago|reply
Google tells me that Germany has seven freight train services a week going to/from China.
http://tbngroup.de/en/internation-forwarding-logistics-from-...
[+] [-] johansch|9 years ago|reply
That's just ~28 km/h on average. I ride my bicycle faster than that :).
[+] [-] angelohuang|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zeristor|9 years ago|reply
Speed and frequency are both important, unless you have the liberty to synchronise.
[+] [-] golergka|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gaius|9 years ago|reply