[samhamilton]

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?

[paradite]

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.

[jessriedel]

It's amazing the contrast in usefulness between samhamilton's comment and jakozaur's Fermi estimate elsewhere in this thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13317649

It's just a completely different method of going about arguments.

[Shivetya]

I will be very curious if the savings hold up. Then throw in the risk of cargo theft which will be higher by this method of transport and this method is also more subject to mechanical issues with both vehicle and the rails it rides on.

[bkor]

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.

[simonh]

>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.

That wouldn't make the rail system a sustainable business because it would only make money when there are problems with sea freight. To be sustainable it needs regular bookings. That's likely to be high value goods where timely and reliable delivery are important.

Also bear in mind these goods are shipped directly to cities anywhere in Europe. For some goods Madrid might be a better hub than any sea port and it's is nowhere near the sea, so sea freight would still need to be transferred to rail or road to get there. That's not such an issue for London, but it's a factor for many of these routes.

[crdoconnor]

Also blockades. This lets China continue trading with Europe if access to the straits of Malacca or Suez canal are cut off.

[arctangent]

It's a hedge bet.

[loxs]

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.

[pasta]

If waiting for a part costs thousands a day, every day saved is a plus.

I think there are a lot of companies willing to pay extra to get it in 18 days vs 27 days.

[ekianjo]

if that is the case you use airfreight.

[martinald]

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?

[osivertsson]

I'm a software developer working with embedded devices, but I sometimes hear snippets of conversations regarding logistics. The story can be something like this:

The device is manufactured, flashed, and packaged in China, and normally shipped by sea. But now demand has gone up, or production has been slightly delayed, and we need to get devices to customers. Maybe we will run out of stock in 1-2 weeks. We can't really (only) load a container ship and not be able to get devices to customers for a couple of weeks when demand is high. The logistics team then tries to ship limited quantities by air and/or train to bridge the gap until the next container ship arrives.

Hence my (very limited) experience tells me there is definitely a market for something like trains with time and cost in between air freight and container ships.

[nullnilvoid]

Compared to container ships, freight train is another option. Although not many, there are times when the goods are needed more urgently than container ships (think of some industries that require parts urgently but cannot afford air). In addition, some landlocked cities simply do not have container ships as an option. They need to ship goods to a nearby port by train or truck and then load all the containers to a ship.

From this article http://richardtorian.blogspot.com/2012/01/cost-per-ton-mile-..., you can cut the shipping costs by train to a pretty low level.

[CaliforniaKarl]

There are people who want more than just the within-a-day (air) or within-a-month (sea) options. When you ship something cross-country (for the US) by Ground, that's going by train for most of the journey.

[LargoLasskhyfv]

I'm not into logistics, but following this out of curiosity. In Germany this started in 2008, and didn't make sense to me either. Got aware of it because the local press covered it. (Sorry for the german links) http://www.mopo.de/peking-hamburg-container-express-der-mons... , http://www.mopo.de/-trans-eurasia-express-hier-kommt-der-xxl... Then over the years, it was busisness as usual, slowly expanding: http://www.wiwo.de/unternehmen/dienstleister/china-zug-deuts... , http://www.dbschenker.com/ho-de/news_media/presse/corporate-..., https://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article118648469/Neue-Bahnver... , https://www.welt.de/regionales/duesseldorf/article126318669/... , http://www.transa.dbschenker.de/log-transa-de/start/China_Co... , http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wirtschaft/von-westeuropa-nach-ch... ,https://www.deutschland.de/de/topic/wirtschaft/globalisierun...

The gist of all that german garble is that it is about twice the speed of sea freight, measured "door to door", while costing only half as much as air freight, but twice that of sea freight. co² emission is calculated as half of that of sea freight, and 25 times less than air freight. In 2016 they shipped somewhat over 40.000 containers in about 400 trains, which carry about 50 containers per train.

The NYT covered this in 2013 with an interactive feature: http://www.nytimes.com/newsgraphics/2013/07/21/silk-road/ http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/business/global/hauling-ne...

hth

almost forgotten: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Eurasia_Logistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe_Rail...

[stock_toaster]

My guess is simply logistical redundancy. If the shipping lanes were impassible for some reason (blockade? ports damaged due to tsunami?), goods could still be sent/received via rail more cheaply than by air.

Could also be a way to spur growth too. If you need to spend money on something, infrastructure seems like a decent choice.