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Comment by geraldhh | Hacker News Reader

can someone more caffeinated than me, do the math here plz? i suspect there will be some lengthy trains involved.

The Japan Times article says they plan to initially carry 300,000 TEU per year in both directions, via three round-trip trains per day (~=137 TEU per train). That works out to 11.5 New Panamax ships per year in each direction.

It also says they eventually plan to increase the capacity to 1.4 million TEU per year, equivalent to 54 New Panamax container ships in each direction.

> via three round-trip trains per day (~=137 TEU per train)

given 2-10k TEU per ship, that does not sound nearly enough

The math in the post you responded to checks out:

> That works out to 11.5 New Panamax ships per year in each direction

It seems like that it's enough, for 11.5 new panamax ships per year in each direction.

300k TEU a DAY would sound about right.

That's roughly 10x the traffic through the canal.[0]

The project goal of 1.4 million containers is 16% as much traffic as the canal. For comparison the existing Panama Canal railway has a capacity of 2 million TEU/year.

[0] (yes these are annual not monthly) https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/panama/container-port-...

New Panamax ships can carry 13,000 twenty-foot-equivalent units. 13,000 * 20 ft = 260,000 ft = 49 miles. (You can stack containers on top of each other, so 25 miles. There also needs to be space between the containers on a train for the couplers, etc., though, so a real train would probably be longer than this.)

I am not sure how much the railway helps. There is already a railway across North America and it's still cheaper to go via Panama at this scale.

24000 TEU ships don't fit into Panama canal.

Well they didn't mention 24000 teu.

Or are you saying they wouldn't be limited by panamax, so could theoretically lower costs on the shipping portion?

They did calculate with 24000 TEUs, edited the comment afterwards. All good.

Yup, I did. I had that thought like, wait, can that big a ship fit through the Panama canal? The answer is... no ;)

Sounds like what they need is a conveyor belt

terrific idea

Pretty fragile though.

idk, could be addressed with segmentation and redundancy thou

Not if you put it on some sort of rail system, and make sure each unit that's on the system has the capability to push/stop itself on this rail system.

why not a slingshot?

Some sort of a sideways space-elevator.

Space fountain working with containers! :)

Not sure if GP meant the math for just the trains bit. There is an increase in handling, and everytime the container changes hands, it's going to cost (assuming dearly). First the ship has to berth (cost), unloaded using QC gantry (cost) onto an ITV (cost) where it gets stacked using a stacker/gantry (cost) in a yard (cost) and then unstacked using a stacker/gantry (cost) onto a truck/ITV (cost) which takes it to a stacker/gantry (cost) which then stacks it onto a train (cost). This is then probably going to be reversed on the other side of the train destination assuming it's a port.

The handling is an opportunity too, though. Now you can merge cargo from several ships, and split the cargo from one ship to several others.

Rarely do all containers go in one large batch from just one port to another single one.

i don't disagree, but were it that advantageous, there would be islands in the pacific where this happened

For 1000 containers of the 40 foot class (which are more widespread than the standard 20 foot class, the train would have to be about 14.5 km long. If you take 1/2 m distance between the wagons.

For reference:

" The Australian BHP Iron Ore is the longest train ever recorded in history at approximately 4.6 miles (7.353 km). In the Pilbara region of Western Australia, BHP owns and runs the Mount Newman railway. This is a private rail network designed to transport iron ore "

In the U.S. they often double stack containers--so that would be half the distance if they could:

"Invented in the United States in 1984, it is now being used for nearly seventy percent of United States intermodal shipments. Using double stack technology, a freight train of a given length can carry roughly twice as many containers, sharply reducing transport costs per container."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-stack_rail_transport

But generally going around the southern tip of South America could well be cheaper--although it may take longer.

You're right about that. However, this probably only works with diesel-powered locomotives and not with electrified railway systems.

why wouldn't it apply to electrified railways? I mean it's all energy in the end. I'm sure they make electric motors powerful enough and you can pull your own batteries as part of the load.

The clearance above the train. You have to rebuild every passenger transportation train to work with higher clearance or you build a dedicated railway system only for transportation. Neither financial nor ecologically sustainable.

I mean it would seem to be an innovation but "invention" seems like a stretch as there is nothing new about stacking stuff. I mean it should be a staightforward idea/extrapolation for any "good" mechanical engineer familiar with railroads and trains?

I wander if there are any publically available topographical maps along the roughly estimated region available to find an optimal path, even if it's a "as the crow flies" estimate.

Panamax ships can carry up to 5000 ISO containers, while Neopanamax (the ones using the new set of locks) carry up to 14000. No idea about LPG tankers, etc.

Only if all containers are empty. It is usually less than 14,000 if you assume the average weight of four and a half tons per container.

couldn't you just use more trains rather than longer trains? I'm sure it wouldn't cost as much as developing entirely new types of trains.

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