Transcontinental

Check this out: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... UyRa4wf95g

A new China to Germany route to compete with container ships.

NYNE wrote:Check this out: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... UyRa4wf95g

A new China to Germany route to compete with container ships.

One problem here is that the Trans-Siberian is already extremely busy, even though electrified and double tracked throughout.

There is enough potential traffic for a completely new route, possibly via Iran and Afganistan.
http://www.ajg41.clara.co.uk/afghanistan.html#game

i think well see more of this kind of service as carbon taxes an consumer preference hits air frieght . Its not so much the time saving , but the relaibility of the service that will sell it .
As one that improts by sea frieght , I know its a bit of a lottery as to what ship your cargoes going to end up on . its abit of a case of booking your cargo in , then it going into a black hole until you are notified of its arrival .

David Benton wrote:i think well see more of this kind of service as carbon taxes an consumer preference hits air frieght . Its not so much the time saving , but the relaibility of the service that will sell it .
As one that improts by sea frieght , I know its a bit of a lottery as to what ship your cargoes going to end up on . its abit of a case of booking your cargo in , then it going into a black hole until you are notified of its arrival .

Well, I can't see there being a train to New Zealand.

For traffic between western Europe and China one possibility is to extend the Broad gauge lines further west from their present termini in Poland and Czeckia (or possibly Slovakia). But another possible route of course is across Pakistan and India, Burma and Vietnam. There are many political problems along this route, as also in Afghanistan. So far theTrans-Siberian is the only one that actually works. But Russia is also problematic as it uses its muscle to annoy the Europeans over gas supplies.

New zealand would be best served by frequent ships to connect to hubs sucgh as singapore and hongkong .

There is the central russia route , that was opened a few years ago . though it goes through independant countries now .
I cant see the southern asian countries ever been organised or stable enough to provide worthwhile through service .

george matthews wrote:

David Benton wrote:i think well see more of this kind of service as carbon taxes an consumer preference hits air frieght . Its not so much the time saving , but the relaibility of the service that will sell it .
As one that improts by sea frieght , I know its a bit of a lottery as to what ship your cargoes going to end up on . its abit of a case of booking your cargo in , then it going into a black hole until you are notified of its arrival .

Well, I can't see there being a train to New Zealand.

For traffic between western Europe and China one possibility is to extend the Broad gauge lines further west from their present termini in Poland and Czeckia (or possibly Slovakia). But another possible route of course is across Pakistan and India, Burma and Vietnam. There are many political problems along this route, as also in Afghanistan. So far theTrans-Siberian is the only one that actually works. But Russia is also problematic as it uses its muscle to annoy the Europeans over gas supplies.

1. There is a route from China to Kazakstan - not all this traffic has to use the Trans Siberian.

2. Kazakstan and Türkmenistan are building a standard gauge line from the Chinese border to the Iranian Border (about 3990km).

The first 320km from Dostyk to Aktogai will be finished this year.

"The Trans-Kazakhstan corridor will parallel the existing railway along the side of Lake Balkhash from Aktogai to Mointy on the north-south main line. From here new standard and broad gauge tracks will head west on a new alignment to Kyzylzhar, after which the standard-gauge will again parallel the existing KTZ branch to Zhekazgan.

After Zhezkazgan the standard-gauge line will strike out west across the Aral basin to meet the Moscow - Toshkent line at Saksaulskaya, a few kilometres north of Aralsk. A new route with both standard and broad gauge tracks will be built from here around the north side of the Aral Sea to Beineu, close to the border with Uzbekistan. This was to be built as a broad gauge line in any case, as part of a strategic plan to link up isolated sections of the KTZ network.

The standard-gauge line will then parallel the existing route from Beineu to the Caspian Sea port of Aktau. From here traffic will use a train ferry to reach the Iranian port of Bandar Turkman.

We are looking at two options to complete an all-rail route. One would diverge from the Aktau line at Saj-Utes and turn south to Novyi Uzen (Tenge). It would run north-south across Turkmenistan and cross the Iranian border at Gonbad-e-Kavus, about 90 km northeast of the RAI railhead at Gorgan. From here standard-gauge landbridge traffic to Europe would be routed via Tehran and Tabriz to the Turkish border at Reze." (from Railway Gazette)

TCDD (Turkish State Railways) are now working out plans to build a railway around the Van Lake because Van Lake ferry will become the bottleneck of this new route otherwise...

"The other option would be to head northwest from Beineu around the top of the Caspian Sea through Russia and Ukraine. This option has not been assessed in detail because of Russian Railways' earlier reluctance to become involved. Once we explained that the corridor is intended to target traffic from the expanding economy in western China, and not to compete with the existing Trans-Siberian flows, RZD agreed to co-operate with our studies.

Apart from the gauge, the new line across Kazakhstan will be built to the current KTZ standards, with a line speed of 150 km/h and passing loops able to take 1500m trains of up to 60 wagons grossing 4500 tonnes. Electrification and upgrading for higher speeds may be considered in the future. "
(from Railway Gazette)

Thanks for that Thomas . Good to see railway Gazette is keeping up reporting form all over the world .