Given how overbooked the port of LA is (to the point where Chinese sea-vessels are going to the _EAST_ coast in hopes of actually delivering their payloads), freight rail between China and the USA is an obvious benefit to both countries.
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.
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!
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail#Freight_high-s...