Rail Line Collasping on West Coast

Rail line access collapsing along the West Coast, forcing desperate suppliers to ship products using more expensive truck freight instead

September 16, 2020 by IWB

 

by: Ethan Huff

(Natural News) The industrial rail lines that fan out from ports all along the West Coast to destinations throughout the rest of the United States are no longer able to accommodate normal demand for product shipments, according to new reports.

A logistics consultant from Northern California claims he was unable to book any shipping containers either through Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) or Union Pacific (UP) during the first week of September, a scenario that apparently has never happened before during his tenure.

“I have been working in the industry for 30 years and I have never seen anything like this,” he is quoted as saying after failing to get loads sent to and from West Coast ports and Midwest destinations. “It’s weird.”

This individual, who chose to remain anonymous, says it was the same story in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland, and Seattle, all of which had “no rail cars” and “no chassis” available for shipping goods.

Because these two major rail lines appear to no longer be accepting shipments, some companies are now having to send their goods via truck freight, which is a whole lot more expensive.

“The railroads will not take any bookings right now and so all the containers going to and from the West Coast to places such as Chicago and Memphis must go by truck,” he indicated.

The situation is putting importers of low-value products such as tee shirts at an economic disadvantage since it will now cost them a whole lot more money to send their goods via America’s crumbling roadways.

A freight truck from Los Angeles or Long Beach to Chicago, for instance, costs about $7,000, while one from LA or LB to Nashville costs about $7,200. A shipment from the same origin all the way to Jacksonville, Florida, costs even more at $8,800 a pop.

While it used to cost about $2,000 to send a truck container from one coast to the other, “those days are gone,” the consultant maintains.

“In the good old days, you could ship a container from the West Coast to Chicago or Memphis by rail for $1,000,” he explains.

More train loads now passing through Canada because it’s cheaper

One exception was observed at the Port of Prince Rupert in British Columbia, where COSCO vessels can still ship goods internationally from Memphis, Tennessee while completely avoiding America’s West Coast ports. The only problem is that it takes an extra 21 days, the consultant noted.

Shipping through Canada in this manner is cheaper, however, which evidence suggests is contributing to a shift in the way some businesses send their goods overseas.

BNSF is also rejecting the notion that it lacks international railcar capacity, which a spokesman described as “inaccurate.”

“BNSF is open for business and ready to receive all freight from ocean carriers at the West Coast ports,” he added. “We have a railcar fleet in excess of demand and have sufficient locomotives, equipment and people across our network to handle current and additional volumes.”

“As always, we are in constant communication with our customers and remain focused on meeting their shipment needs.”

UP offered similar feedback, claiming that the company is continuing to align its resources to handle increased demand. An UP spokesman told AJOT that there is “positive momentum” happening, and a “surge” in “intermodal demand.”

The Surface Transportation Board (STB), however, sent identical letters to both companies expressing similar concerns as the consultant about a lack of adequate rail service, as well as available rail personnel to handle the transport freight.

More related news about America’s growing logistics problem can be found at Collapse.news.

Sources for this article include:

AJOT.com

NaturalNews.com

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Is China Preparing For

a Land Of Invasion Of the West Coast Of the United States?

Tuesday, August 30, 2016 6:26

 

(Before It's News)

 

Is China Preparing For a Land Of Invasion Of the West Coast Of the United States?

When we read the papers or turn on the television (for those of us who have television), hardly a day or two passes by without the mention of new (or ongoing) actions by the Chinese government in a military capacity.  Within the past year alone, China has extended her reach steadily beyond her own territorial waters and nearby sea-lanes. 

She has participated in numerous exercises, some of them jointly with foreign nations.  Anyone can clearly witness her aggressive, outwardly expanding policies regarding territory and flexing her muscle.

The most recent maneuver comes on the heels of the Russian actions in Syria.  China (if you recall) just sent a carrier through the Suez Canal to support Russia’s actions, “against ISIL/ISIS”…whatever the boogeyman/Emmanuel Goldstein is currently labeled.  In reality, China is forming a partnership in a power play that may hold dire ramifications for Western society.  These ramifications are likely to be economic as well as military.

Joint exercises with Russia began on August 21, 2015, labeled as the “Sea Cooperation: 2015 (II) exercise.  Russia was in charge of the operation that was held in the Sea of Japan just off the coast of Vladivostok, Russia.  The Chinese sent five aircraft, six helicopters, and approximately 500 soldiers to participate in the exercises.  The exercises lasted until August 28 and were the longest cooperative military exercises between China and Russia to date.  The basic objective was to foster coordination and partnership in landing operations and seagoing/naval defenses.

In this exercise, five Chinese fighter planes were permitted to cross the Russian border for the first time.  Truly this represents a tremendous change between two countries that were in an undeclared state of war for more than half a century.  The frightening thing is this silent objective lodged within the exercises:

“…the Chinese-Russian exercises [are] mostly pointed toward organization and tactics of military maneuvers in landing operations…”            

The People’s Daily

Landing operations.  If the Chinese are not preparing for an invasion of the West Coast of the United States as (or during the) kickoff to WWIII-hostilities, then every military analyst and observer must be wrong.  Superficially it can be to prepare China for the Senkaku Island campaign, which is definitely in the works versus Japan.  The scale and complexity of the maneuvers, however, lends to reason that a much bigger target must be in China’s sights.  We are already aware of Russia’s aggressive stance and unwillingness to back down even with the potential of a conflict with NATO and other allied Western Powers.

These exercises are much more than merely “force projection,” a term basically to connotate that one side is brandishing its claws and baring its fangs to the other side in a show of capabilities.  These exercises are to develop key command and control networks with Chinese allies for both potential small-scale (Senkaku, Syria, for example) joint operations, as well as long-term plans to eventually invade and conquer a larger nation, such as the United States. 

The operations between China and Russia were the first of their kind with a concentrated focus on both the Sea of Japan and the Mediterranean, focusing on readiness to protect naval straits in close proximity to and far away from the borders of the two countries.  The Chinese just “plopped down” a carrier outside of Syria in which its fighter aircraft will be supporting Russia in the “great war against ISIL/ISIS” that apparently has commenced.

The Chinese have been developing land-to-ship and ship-to-ship cruise missiles that can effectively outrun all of the U.S. naval defense systems’ capabilities.  The missile is a “carrier-destroyer” that can render an entire naval fleet or carrier group inoperable with a small nuclear warhead (1/4 megaton or even smaller).  The Chinese have been upgrading their submarine fleet’s capabilities in terms of stealth technology, weapons technology, weapons capacity, and range.

The Chinese (for years, now) have been escalating their cyber attacks, their data theft of military and defense information (most of it classified), and their “probes” of various facets of critical U.S. infrastructure.  To see how this came about, an excellent read is “The Year of the Rat,”characterizing the years of the Clinton administration and how its namesake and cronies enabled the selling of classified defense secrets to Chinese operatives.

The PRC has been modernizing and expanding all of their military capabilities and their presence in all parts of the world.  They have also partnered with Russia in providing both technological and military assistance to Iran, as well as strengthening that country’s position indumping the Petrodollar as the unit of exchange.  It is just a matter of time before Iran permits both Russia and China to keep large troop presences and bases inside of her borders, a deterrent to U.S. attack as well as a first-response capability when that eventuality does indeed occur.

Another key thing to watch is the slumping Chinese economy coupled with the enormous debt owed to China by the U.S.  Does anyone really believe that when and if the Chinese economy is on the brink of collapse/collapses that they’re going to extend to the U.S. one of…   …READ MORE HERE

Nuclear Engineer: “Alarm bells” are going off over Fukushima plume coming to US West Coast — People will be dying from radiation that’s flowing across Pacific — Massive amounts of nuclear waste are flowing into ocean every day, and will for more than a century — “We’ve contaminated the biggest source of water on planet, and there’s no way to stop it” (VIDEO)

Published: April 7th, 2016 at 1:12 pm ET By ENENews  Email Article 139 comments Tweet

Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen on Fukushima@5, Mar 7, 2016 (emphasis added): Massive amounts of radiation continue to enter Japan’s water and air, and the Pacific Ocean, daily… Due to its triple meltdowns and the unmitigable radioactive releases, Fukushima Daiichi will continue to bleed radiation into the Pacific Ocean for more than a century… There is no road map to follow with directions to stop the ongoing debacle…

Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen on KPFA, Mar 30, 2016: [Univ. of California] Berkeley’s nuclear program has been in the forefront of the pro-nuclear propaganda for decades, and since Fukushima has been aggressively downplaying the significance of it. So, whatever comes out of Berkeley, I just attribute to a very pro-nuclear faculty… [Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is] measuring 1,000 miles offshore [of the US West Coast] and… picking up 10 becquerels per cubic meter [Bq/m3]. At my point, that’s when my alarm bells go off is 10 [Bq/m3]… That plume is still coming, the Pacific is a huge place and to think that a disaster on the opposite side of the world can be detected and begin to contaminate California, I think that the monumental shattering conclusion [is] radiation knows no borders… So this ‘dilution is the solution to pollution’ is what I think Berkeley believes in. What you can be sure of is that somebody’s going to die from the radiation that’s in the Pacific, but you just won’t know who it is – and they’re counting on that. The nuclear establishment is saying, ‘Well, we can smear that out in a broader epidemiological study.’

Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen on CCTV, Apr 5, 2016: We’re looking at newspaper coverage from the last couple of weeks and it’s clear that the plant continues to hemorrhage.

Fairewinds Japan Speaking Tour Series No. 1, Feb 12, 2016:

• Nuclear engineer Arnie Gundersen: [T]he Fukushima power plants… continues to bleed into the Pacific every day. But what no one is paying any attention to is that the entire mountain range that runs 100 miles up and down this coast is also contaminated. And as much radiation is pouring out… into the Pacific from the mountain range because it’s so contaminated, as from the Fukushima site… in fact, they’ve got an entire state pouring radiation into the Pacific. So what’s in the Pacific? Off of California, they’re finding radiation at what I would consider significant levels… in a cubic meter of ocean water, they’re finding 10 radioactive decays every second… So a cubic meter of water, if you’re in a dark room, would have 10 flashes of light every second, and that’s going to go on for 300 years. So we have contaminated the biggest source of water on the planet, and there’s no way to stop it.
• Maggie Gundersen, founder of Fairewinds: So are you saying that the contaminated water problem is hopeless? Is there nothing we can do to slow it down?
• Arnie Gundersen: It used to be that scientists believed dilution is the solution to pollution. But I think we’re finding with the biggest body of water on the planet, that you can’t dilute this stuff. And we’re going to begin to see this bio-accumulation, which is all the fish that are in the ocean are going to uptake the cesium and the strontium and become more and more and more radioactive…

Interviews: KPFA | CCTV

Published: April 7th, 2016 at 1:12 pm ET By ENENews  Email Article 139 comments Like ENENews on Facebook Follow ENENews on Twitter Subscribe to the ENENews RSS Feed Sign up for daily email updates

Related Posts

1. TV: Fukushima nuclear waste increasing off West Coast each year since 2012 — Fish tested “fairly high for radiation” — It’s around for next century, even if reactors stop gushing into ocean now — “A danger to people living here?… Are officials purposefully holding back info?” (VIDEO) October 25, 2014
2. Nuclear Expert: US West Coast being continuously exposed to Fukushima radioactive releases, it’s an ongoing tragedy — Marine Chemist: Impossible to stop nuclear waste flowing into ocean; “It never will be… that’s what keeps me up at night” — Radiation levels spiked 1,000% since floods (VIDEOS) September 21, 2015
3. Nuclear Expert: This is just 1st radioactive wave hitting U.S. and Canada; Fukushima pouring into ocean, unstoppable for years and years — Marine Expert: No sign it will stop anytime soon; Plant unstable, potentially worse than Chernobyl (AUDIO) January 21, 2014
4. ‘Absolute Shock’: Nuclear waste on roof of Fukushima reactor flowing directly in ocean — Officials kept secret for past year & did nothing to stop it — Coming from highly radioactive debris on top of Unit 2; Gundersen: Reactor pressures got so high “it blew top off” — Amount of leakage ‘unknown’ — “Fallout far from over… International fury rising” (VIDEO) February 25, 2015
5. Twice as much Fukushima radiation near California coast than originally reported; Highest levels found anywhere in Eastern Pacific — Scientist: Very little we can do… It’s unprecedented… God forbid anything else happens — Gundersen: Multiple plumes now along west coast… Will be coming “for century or more” (AUDIO) November 20, 2014

Major Carbon Monoxide Explosion West Coast !!!

        

mike morales

 

What happened, and why?  What is the concentration, and is it dangerous?  If you know please comment.  Or does it simple indicate that an earth quake is coming, and a big one?

 http://subterrnews.blogspot.com/2016/02/major-carbon-monoxide-explosion-west.html