Suez Canal currently blocked (update - unblocked!)

From last week:
gcaptain.com

Reinsurers Set to Bear Brunt of Costs for Suez Canal Grounding

By Jonathan Saul and Carolyn Cohn LONDON, April 8 (Reuters) – Reinsurers are set to foot most of the bill for the grounding of the ship that halted traffic in the Suez...
gcaptain.com gcaptain.com

gcaptain.com

Suez Ripples Raises Rates for All Containerships

By Mike Wackett (The Loadstar) – There are reports of “sharp increases” in Asia-Europe container spot rates this week, as the fallout from the week-long Suez Canal blockage restricts both vessel and...
gcaptain.com gcaptain.com
 
I am surprised that the fine is not the other way around. It's my understanding that canal transits are under the direct authority of an onboard deployed pilot trained and employed by the canal operator...

If the fine is consequent, we are probably not left without many more similar incidents.
 
Last edited:
TomcatViP said:
I am surprised that the fine is not the other way around. It's my understanding that canal transits are under the direct authority of an onboard deployed pilot trained and employed by the canal operator...
Click to expand...

Not so. The Canal pilots are strictly advisors under the terms of the passage contracts. The ship's Captain and crew retain all the authority and responsibility for actually operating the ship.

In theory, the pilots are supposed to give the captain suggestions or warnings. In practice, it seems like they are mostly there to collect bribes.
 
BAROBA said:
DWG said:
Hobbes said:

A train carries ~50 containers. Ever Given carries 20,000, so each ship that size requires ~400 trains to replace it. Rotterdam receives on the order of 22000 containers/day, so you'd need a train to arrive every 3.6 minutes all day long to replace that. That much traffic requires 4 dedicated tracks all the way from Rotterdam to Shenzen.
Click to expand...
And considerably more than 4 tracks to unload it at the railhead! Each train would need access to an unloading crane, and a quick google suggests maximum unloading speed for quayside gantries is about 1 container a minute. I don't expect trackside cranes to be particularly faster. So a 50 container train would need at least 50 minutes to unload. Or close enough to an hour by the time you've marshalled it into place. 15 trains an hour means a minimum of a 15 track unloading facility, each track with its own crane. 15 tracks isn't unprecedented for goods yards, but it's still a big yard. And you either need trucks to take them away, or container stackers to shunt them around if you're holding them on site.
Click to expand...
I happen to work in that sector... Ships, trucks and trains...
You can have multiple cranes per track... Depends on how big the terminal is..
But 15 tracks is not something I have seen at a (intermodal)terminal, I see usually around 8 tracks.
I see more and more terminal pop-up in Eastern Europe that are connections between the Asian trainnetworks and the European networks. Specialising in moving containers from one track-system to another.
It is also possible to store containers 2 on top of each other, so in effect doubling capacity of a train. ( Something common in China and the USA, but not allowed in Europe)
There are already different routes from China into Europe, and more may be on the way.

Rob
Click to expand...
How wide apart are Chinese rails?
How wide apart are Russian rails?
How wide apart are European rails?
 
From agico group:

Railway Track GaugeCountries
2134mm ( 7ft )UK
1829mmMoscow-St. Petersburg Line, U.S. Erie Line
1674mm (5ft 5in)Spain
1665mm (5ft 5in)Portugal
1600mmIreland, Northern Ireland (UK), Australia (Victoria and South Australia), Brazil
1524mm (5 feet) 1520mmRussia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armeria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Mongolia, Finland (Grand Duchy of Russia in the 19th century), Peak Cable car (Hong Kong, China)
1435mm （4ft 8½in） China, North Korea, South Korea, Japan (Tokaido, Sanyo and other Shinkansen), Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia, Mauritania, Gabon, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, United Kingdom, France, Monaco, Italy, Vatican, Yugoslavia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Greece, United States, Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Dominica, Colombia, Venezuela, Guyana, Peru, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Australia, Taiwan High-Speed Rail, Taipei MRT and Kaohsiung MRT-Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT (China Taiwan), East Rail Line-West Rail Line-Light Rail and Maanshan Line (Hong Kong, China), Madrid-Serbia High-Speed Railway (Spain)
1432mmLondon Underground (UK), Tsuen Wan Line-Island Line-Tung Chung Line-Machine Line Express-Tseung Kwan O Line (Hong Kong, China)
1372mmKeiking Electric Railway – Tokyu Shinjuku Line – Hakodate Shibuya Line – Dotoku Line (Japan)
1067mmJapan (80%), Australia (Queensland), New Zealand, Taiwan Province (China), India, Pakistan, Ghana, Congo, Tanzania, Zambia, Indonesia, South Africa, Angola, Botswana, Jordan, Algeria, Morocco, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Nigeria, Angola, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Namibia, Sudan, Ghana, Lesotho, Honduras, Costa Rica, Dominica, Ecuador, the Philippines, Hainan Province (China), South Sakhalin ( Sakhalin) (Russia)
1090mmSwitzerland
1050mmPalestine, Angola
1000mmChina (Kunming to Hekou), Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Myanmar, India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Mali, Guinea, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Togo, Benin, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Tunisia, Djibouti, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Madagascar, Switzerland, Spain, Puerto Rico, Brazil
914mmPanama, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala, Peru
800mmSwitzerland
762mmSugar Railway, Alishan Forest Railway, Eastern Taitung Line (Taiwan, China)
760mmIndia, Nepal, Indonesia
610mmIndia
 
riggerrob said:
BAROBA said:
DWG said:
Hobbes said:

A train carries ~50 containers. Ever Given carries 20,000, so each ship that size requires ~400 trains to replace it. Rotterdam receives on the order of 22000 containers/day, so you'd need a train to arrive every 3.6 minutes all day long to replace that. That much traffic requires 4 dedicated tracks all the way from Rotterdam to Shenzen.
Click to expand...
And considerably more than 4 tracks to unload it at the railhead! Each train would need access to an unloading crane, and a quick google suggests maximum unloading speed for quayside gantries is about 1 container a minute. I don't expect trackside cranes to be particularly faster. So a 50 container train would need at least 50 minutes to unload. Or close enough to an hour by the time you've marshalled it into place. 15 trains an hour means a minimum of a 15 track unloading facility, each track with its own crane. 15 tracks isn't unprecedented for goods yards, but it's still a big yard. And you either need trucks to take them away, or container stackers to shunt them around if you're holding them on site.
Click to expand...
I happen to work in that sector... Ships, trucks and trains...
You can have multiple cranes per track... Depends on how big the terminal is..
But 15 tracks is not something I have seen at a (intermodal)terminal, I see usually around 8 tracks.
I see more and more terminal pop-up in Eastern Europe that are connections between the Asian trainnetworks and the European networks. Specialising in moving containers from one track-system to another.
It is also possible to store containers 2 on top of each other, so in effect doubling capacity of a train. ( Something common in China and the USA, but not allowed in Europe)
There are already different routes from China into Europe, and more may be on the way.

Rob
Click to expand...
How wide apart are Chinese rails?
How wide apart are Russian rails?
How wide apart are European rails?
Click to expand...
China and Europe use the same track gauge, but Russia has a different gauge. There are other differences too (different couplings between rail cars, for example), most commonly the containers are shifted from one train to the other.
Given enough demand, I can see 1435 mm gauge tracks being laid in Russia.
 
TomS said:
TomcatViP said:
I am surprised that the fine is not the other way around. It's my understanding that canal transits are under the direct authority of an onboard deployed pilot trained and employed by the canal operator...
Click to expand...

Not so. The Canal pilots are strictly advisors under the terms of the passage contracts. The ship's Captain and crew retain all the authority and responsibility for actually operating the ship.

In theory, the pilots are supposed to give the captain suggestions or warnings. In practice, it seems like they are mostly there to collect bribes.
Click to expand...
Yes, the captain is still responsible for the ship and its cargo.
A British Columbia Coastal Pilot explained that he sometimes "suggests" that the captain 'go catch up on paperwork ' nudge! nudge! wink! wink! but the captain is more likely napping. Ships may spend hours or days transiting from the outer islands (where they pick up the pilot) to a B.C. port deep up a fjord. The Inside Passage goes most of the way from Seattle to Alaska and requires passing more islands than I can count, plus a few submerged rocks that have gutted ships.
 
Fluff said:
From agico group: (snipped the table)
Click to expand...

A month late, but there hasn't been any main-line Broad-gauge (7ft 1/4 in) in the UK since GWR completed relaying to standard gauge in May 1892, and Parliament had ruled for Standard Gauge as early as 1846. So at best that table is quoting historical information without specifying whether it still applies.

WRT to the change of gauge between Russian broad gauge and European standard gauge, outside of transshipping from one train to another, the practise used to be for trains to swap bogies at the borders. More modern practise is for the axles to have two separate positions for the wheels and to move them in or out as needed. Either of these is still far too slow for the volume of trains required by China's plans for the Northern Trans Asia Route, but there are a handful of modern automated gauge change systems that can function while the train is moving at low speed that could potentially be developed for use.

Wiki quotes the following for the Polish SUW 2000 variable gauge system:
"For a 32-wagon goods train it takes about 12 hours to cross the break of gauge using the bogie exchange facility. A transshipment involving unloading goods from one train and loading them onto another takes about 22 hours. If SUW 2000 II was deployed, the time taken for the crossing would be reduced to 4 hours."
 

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