Serious Proposals for Trans-Arctic Shipping?

[Anderson]

I've put this in "General Rail Discussions" for reasons that should be self-evident shortly; also, it was inspired by the "how far can we go?" thread.

Seeing as the Arctic sea ice pack seems to be...er...toast in the next decade or so, I'm wondering whether there have been serious plans mooted to run things up to ports on the Arctic sea (or one of the "attached" seas), trans-ship them to places on the other side. This wouldn't work very well on the Atlantic side of things, but on the Pacific side it would seem to be a "cheap" version (in relative terms, at least) of the Bering Sea tunnel project since you could arguably cut off several hundred miles of railroad line on either side of the Bering Strait.

Mind you, I know the seasonal issues (even ignoring sea ice, there's a habit of weather getting nasty in the upper latitudes), which does make an "all rail" project more desirable (not to mention avoiding a mode shift, though the break of gauge does mean that you're going to get stuck with a hell of a sorting yard somewhere to deal with either transferring containers or running cars through a re-gauging device. I'd also note that a collapse of sea ice in the Bering Strait could make a railbarge connection workable...and that would seem to be at the very least a viable interim stage before the tunnel itself is built.

So, I am wondering if any projects other than the Russian Bering Strait megaproject have been proposed.

 

[railiner]

I've put this in "General Rail Discussions" for reasons that should be self-evident shortly; also, it was inspired by the "how far can we go?" thread.

Seeing as the Arctic sea ice pack seems to be...er...toast in the next decade or so, I'm wondering whether there have been serious plans mooted to run things up to ports on the Arctic sea (or one of the "attached" seas), trans-ship them to places on the other side. This wouldn't work very well on the Atlantic side of things, but on the Pacific side it would seem to be a "cheap" version (in relative terms, at least) of the Bering Sea tunnel project since you could arguably cut off several hundred miles of railroad line on either side of the Bering Strait.

Mind you, I know the seasonal issues (even ignoring sea ice, there's a habit of weather getting nasty in the upper latitudes), which does make an "all rail" project more desirable (not to mention avoiding a mode shift, though the break of gauge does mean that you're going to get stuck with a hell of a sorting yard somewhere to deal with either transferring containers or running cars through a re-gauging device. I'd also note that a collapse of sea ice in the Bering Strait could make a railbarge connection workable...and that would seem to be at the very least a viable interim stage before the tunnel itself is built.

So, I am wondering if any projects other than the Russian Bering Strait megaproject have been proposed.

One of my 'bucket list' cruises is on Hapag-Lloyd across the Northwest Passage. They only offer it once every couple of years or so, and it is much more expensive then normal cruises.....but the way the climate is changing, it may become more accessible....

 

[fairviewroad]

My highly uneducated response is that if you're taking things off trains and putting them on ships, then you may as well continue

doing that in Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, or Prince Rupert, etc. What is gained by taking items by train to/from the Arctic? Yeah,

the "voyage" would be shorter but you still are saddled with the inefficiencies of the rail-ship connection on either end.

 

[Anderson]

My highly uneducated response is that if you're taking things off trains and putting them on ships, then you may as well continue

doing that in Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, or Prince Rupert, etc. What is gained by taking items by train to/from the Arctic? Yeah,

the "voyage" would be shorter but you still are saddled with the inefficiencies of the rail-ship connection on either end.

The time savings would, however, seem to be reasonably significant (on the order of a week or two, which is serious).

 

[fairviewroad]

My highly uneducated response is that if you're taking things off trains and putting them on ships, then you may as well continue

doing that in Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, or Prince Rupert, etc. What is gained by taking items by train to/from the Arctic? Yeah,

the "voyage" would be shorter but you still are saddled with the inefficiencies of the rail-ship connection on either end.

The time savings would, however, seem to be reasonably significant (on the order of a week or two, which is serious).

Significant for what percentage of the goods being shipped trans-Pacific? Does it really matter how fast a television or

a pair of shoes or a new Mazda takes to cross the ocean?

 

[Anderson]

My highly uneducated response is that if you're taking things off trains and putting them on ships, then you may as well continue

doing that in Seattle, Portland, Los Angeles, or Prince Rupert, etc. What is gained by taking items by train to/from the Arctic? Yeah,

the "voyage" would be shorter but you still are saddled with the inefficiencies of the rail-ship connection on either end.

The time savings would, however, seem to be reasonably significant (on the order of a week or two, which is serious).

Significant for what percentage of the goods being shipped trans-Pacific? Does it really matter how fast a television or

a pair of shoes or a new Mazda takes to cross the ocean?

Actually, it does, since faster shipping accelerates product turnover. To put it another way, that's two less weeks that it takes to deal with correcting a supply chain issue and its impact on sales. Saving on that time also saves on inventory

I wouldn't think twice if the savings were "just" a day or two, since that is very marginally incremental, but two weeks would be somewhere around a third to half of the total shipping time (which is already exceedingly long).