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A comment on China's Silk Road Illusions. Parent comment

Re:China's Silk Road Illusions by fspeech on Wednesday October 25, 2017 @10:37PM (#15555936)
You are right that they need to find more goods to ship on the return trip. The current route actually runs on existing tracks so didn't require a lot of investment.

For cities like Lanzhou, Xining, Urumqi etc it makes sense to develop a land route. The economics are even better than Chongqing since Chongqing actually has access to the Yangtze river.

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Re:China's Silk Road Illusions by seanmcdirmid on Thursday October 26, 2017 @12:49AM (#15556428)
The tracks aren't as important as the trains in this case; e.g. Crews and fuel as well as not using those on more productive routes. Chongqing as a gateway to the western china is a bit weird since it actually isn't that west :) Chinese geography is a bit wonky like that.
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Re:China's Silk Road Illusions by fspeech on Thursday October 26, 2017 @03:20AM (#15556985)
Chongqing has access to large ships: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_of_Chongqing The advantage of rail for Chongqing is mainly shipping time, which is important for higher value electronics.
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