Sorry fellas in diverting the conversation into airport discussions (but interesting dialogue, nonetheless).
Boston used to have two container terminals. The Moran Terminal in Charlestown was quite small and slowly fell into disuse due to high operating costs and extremely limited expansion capability. It's now an auto facility. Just as well, as impractical-to-remedy air and water draft restrictions render anything upriver of the cross channel tunnels as inappropriate for ever-larger cellular vessels. Container operations were consolidated at Conley terminal in South Boston. That terminal opened in the 60s and never had rail service. The original planners can be forgiven for not foreseeing the import boom which was to happen 20-25 years later, let alone stack trains, etc. I also doubt, even if they were extraordinary visionaries, that getting rail into that facility would have been politically/operationally/economically practical in the 60's. It has slowly evolved into an impossibility. It's not that Massport didn't "develop their port infrastructure like NY/NJ did", they couldn't. Again success breeds success, and Boston area shippers/receivers can often get better cost/service options via NY/NJ thanks to the port's scale, even when the additional inland handling cost is added in.
Most of the freight coming into NY/NJ isn't for domestic consumption... it is re-distributed through out the country.By "domestic", I assume you mean local. If so, rail's market share of international traffic thru NY/NJ should be correspondingly high, correct?
I disagree (respectfully) and say the cost is lower because historically population drove growth and as a result of that growth the infrastructure was there to distribute far and wide, as they now do.No need to disagree, because that is exactly my point. Base (local) demand gives a port economies of scale and greater service options, which can (but not always) serve as a springboard to competitively serve inland locations. In other words, success breeds success. The difference in our opinions (as I interpret yours) is that your contention is a "build it and they will come" approach. It's not that simple; we can use your port of Boston reference as an example:
Boston used to have two container terminals. The Moran Terminal in Charlestown was quite small and slowly fell into disuse due to high operating costs and extremely limited expansion capability. It's now an auto facility. Just as well, as impractical-to-remedy air and water draft restrictions render anything upriver of the cross channel tunnels as inappropriate for ever-larger cellular vessels. Container operations were consolidated at Conley terminal in South Boston. That terminal opened in the 60s and never had rail service. The original planners can be forgiven for not foreseeing the import boom which was to happen 20-25 years later, let alone stack trains, etc. I also doubt, even if they were extraordinary visionaries, that getting rail into that facility would have been politically/operationally/economically practical in the 60's. It has slowly evolved into an impossibility. It's not that Massport didn't "develop their port infrastructure like NY/NJ did", they couldn't. Again success breeds success, and Boston area shippers/receivers can often get better cost/service options via NY/NJ thanks to the port's scale, even when the additional inland handling cost is added in.
Maine squandered away any hope of a real port because they never put in the big time $$ to build a port that could handle huge volumesTwo questions: Where and could you define "huge"?