Re:China’s plan to build the longest underwater tunnel on th...
by useruseruser on Saturday July 13, 2013 @01:52AM
(#6036853)
Well, I have no idea about what the true demand is for this project, but I random article I pulled up on this project claims that today the estimated traffic between the two cities is at least between 30-40k cars/day (http://house.qingdaonews.com/content/2013-07/12/content_9853...). Apparently, the current infrastructure is ill-equipped to handle this, so that some trucks will actually still choose to go the land route. Also, there is something called a train ferry transporting trains across the sea? I had no idea.
Re:China’s plan to build the longest underwater tunnel on th...
by snogglethorpe on Saturday July 13, 2013 @09:14PM
(#6039472)
> Also, there is something called a train ferry transporting trains across the sea? I had no idea.
There are certainly such things, sometimes amazingly seamless, though I've only seen them for passenger trains. Freight trains do tend to present different tradeoffs...
The article mentions it'll generate $3.7b pa, but I assume a big chunk of that revenue will come at the expense of the local shipping route from Dalian to Yantai & Weihai.
From a logistical standpoint I'm scratching my head a little. There's not a huge amount of demand for a container to start in Dalian and finish in Yantai; so justifying a big time saving on that basis seems odd.
China does have a tendency to build a lot of stuff to bump up their GBP and production output to keep people employed and avoid civil unrest. Even so, I'd love to see this get built, but probably will still take the boat.