Re: The Destruction of Farms by Encroaching Cities.

On Sun, 12 May 2024 12:37:58 -0500, AMuzi <am@yellowjersey.org> wrote:

On 5/12/2024 12:16 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:

On Sun, 12 May 2024 15:46:21 GMT, Tom Kunich <cyclintom@yahoo.com>
wrote:
 

The cheapest form if overland transport is the railroads. So WHY are we shipping foods long distance on trucks?

 
Do you know of a train that can cross an ocean?
 
The reason trucks are popular for shipping food is that they don't
need to be loaded and unloaded from the carrier multiple times.  With
a truck, you go from point to point.  With an ocean along the route,
you need to unload the container from the truck, load it onto a
container ship, sail to a port, load the container on a truck, and
drive it to the destination.  If you're shipping food, the added
delays will cause the food to rot or require additional refrigeration.
For shipping within the USA, just replace the container ship with a
railroad and end up with little or no benefit.
 
There's some benefit to rail if you use rail transport where the
container and the truck trailer move as a unit, saving some handling
time and labor.
<https://www.aar.org/issue/freight-rail-intermodal/>
 
Map of the world showing only container vessels:
<https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:-25.6/centery:22.6/zoom:3>

Containerization applies to both rail and ocean. Port or
terminal cranes move containers to trailers for
regional/local transport or the reverse.
>
https://constructionequipmentmag.com/storage/Press%20Files/02/67/12/26712-sxsasa.jpg

If you look carefully at the above photo, there are several empty
railroad cars.  Those are where the containers were lifted or loaded
by the gantry (overhead) crane.  In other words, those railroad cars
are not going to be loaded on the container ship.  The main reasons
are they don't stack well and add too much weight to a seemingly top
heavy container ship:
<https://www.google.com/search?q=world's+largest+container+ship&tbm=isch>

Also, the engines that move the containers around seem to be electric
and are probably intended to only move the containers around the
freight yard and not deliver or pickup to/from customers.

Decisions on routing are complex with no simple general
rule. For example, as you mentioned earlier, time sensitive
shipments can cross the country on a truck in less time than
the loading/routing delay at a rail terminal or bump yard.
And ocean shipping between US ports is almost nonexistent
where any other mode exists due to the crippling effects of
the Jones Act.  Barge traffic moreover is substantial for
some things (corn, wheat, iron ore) at competitive
times/rates but not for others.
>
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/b/iron-ore-carrying-cargo-barge-large-transporting-mined-hinterland-to-main-harbor-loading-big-ships-exporting-89476029.jpg

Yep.  From the libertarian point of view:
<https://www.cato.org/publications/policy-analysis/jones-act-burden-america-can-no-longer-bear>
TL;DR.  Labor unions, dock workers and small US-only ports like the
Jones act.  Everyone else hates it for a wide assortment of reasons.

Global vs Local food:
<https://web.colby.edu/st297-global18/2018/10/28/bens-blog-post/>
See the orange bar chart near bottom of the page on:
"Import Share of US Food Consumption 2011-2013"
It's difficult to tell from the graph, but my guess(tm) is we import
about half of our food. 

Incidentally, you didn't try to answer my rhetorical question.
"Do you know of a train that can cross an ocean?"


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Jeff Liebermann                 jeffl@cruzio.com
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