I can't imagine there's much value in the US for this, considering we have fairly low tourism to China (and getting the visa was a miserable process, personally) and fewer still would be interested in taking train since we don't have that sort of culture here.
By contrast, Chinese tourism is a huge industry and high speed rail is quite normalized in China.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail#Freight_high-s...
I think the port thing is destined to wind down. Mostly this is a temporary fluke - unless climate change or other factors diminish what ports can do.
Past that, would the potential volume carried by rail compete with megaships+air? I don't know the numbers but am doubtful.
My understanding is that California has passed laws that have highly discouraged in-state trucking investment, as many older vehicles became unable to be driven in 2020, and entire classes of engines being banned by 2035.
Ports in other states will have to take up the slack.
The ports of LA and Long Beach also have entrenched labor issues that make modernizing virtually impossible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska-Alberta_Railway_Developm...
See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Rupert#Seaport
>A belief at the beginning of the 1900s that trade expansion was shifting from Atlantic to Pacific destinations, and the benefit of being closer to Asia than existing west coast ports, proved wishful. Reduced transit times to eastern North America and Europe did not outweigh the fact that rail transport has always been far more expensive than by sea. The opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 exacerbated the problem.
It's hard to beat boats!
The back and forth capacity isn't the issue (look, they can even ship to the east coast). It's the capacity in the US to unload (and the capacity in China to load) that are being strained.
Is COVID19 the only strain we'd see on shipping infrastructure that we'd have over the next 50 to 100 years of China-US trade?
If further stresses are to come out in the decades to come, it makes simple sense to invest into more infrastructure. Now, I don't know if rail is necessarily the best path forward, but its a strange one that's at least worth discussing.
> It's the capacity in the US to unload (and the capacity in China to load) that are being strained.
And an additional unloading spot somewhere else would alleviate the amount of work the LA port has to do.
A subset of those tourists are notorious for causing damage in national parks, misbehavior with animals, and leaving trash everywhere. One of the more recent incidents involved a Chinese family bathing their dogs in the thermal springs in Yellowstone, ignoring the signage warning that the ground off the boardwalks is nothing more than a crust of dried mud with scalding hot water below. The majority tend to be respectful, but there's a growing resentment against the bad behaviors of the few that translates into tension and prejudice.
Anyway, if imagine that such a train system would be a good thing, making the transport of tourists both ways more economical, and forcing both countries to adjust culturally. Personally, I've spoken out against China in public to the extent that I would be denied entry, but I love that Americans have the opportunity to engage with the Chinese people outside the bounds of their government's control. More of that can't help but be a good thing.
I agree it'd be awesome tho; I just don't see it happening.
Things do change, however.
Before the major port congestion, Ningbo-LA/Tacoma was usually 2-3 weeks.
Big ocean carriers are very, very efficient carriers of goods. If we don't like the fuel they burn (agreed) we should make them burn cleaner diesel, because it'll still be vastly cheaper and less polluting then building thousands of miles of high capacity train routes through sensitive ecological areas.
Small parcel shipping through high speed passenger train is also feasible, and I think already done.
Ocean carriers are quite efficient, but they need to run on fossil fuels, and especially dirty ones at that.
> China Railway first unveiled the 8,000-mile high-speed underwater railway project in 2014. The underwater train will connect China, Russia, Canada, and the U.S. including a 125-mile undersea tunnel spanning the Bering Strait then to Alaska.
> Beijing Times also reported that Russia is already onboard.