Do they ship them all the way around, through the Panama Canal, or do they ship them to the West Coast and then train them?
My guess is that they do both. Easily trans-shipped items are probably loaded onto rail or truck and dispatched on their way. Items like cars and the like are probably either sent via the canal or around Africa. Anybody know for sure?
Cars (at least some cars) are shipped by train. I’ve seen freight trains that were nothing but cars. They were from some Japanese or Korean manufacturer, but I can’t remember who.
At least for Canada we ship it via freight trains. We have several lines that span the whole country.
Most goods travel through the canal end up at East Coast ports and then travel by train and truck to their destination.
Auto’s are a big part of the Port of Baltimore
I used to work for an apparel company that bought a significant amount of their goods from Asian companies (particuarly mainland China).
Most of the goods they brought in from Asian countries arrived at a west coast port,were unloaded and from there ended up on trains or trucks (occasionally planes) to a company warehouse - and almost all of those were in the SE U.S… One load might come in, get shipped by train to Nashville, then go from there to the nearby warehouse by truck.
Some goods came into East Coast ports like Savannah or Miami (although those were more likely to be coming from plants in Latin America) and were then trucked to the appropriate warehouse.
I can’t recall a shipment actually coming through the Panama Canal to be unloaded in an East Coast port - that doesn’t mean it never happened, as I certainly didn’t see every bill of lading for every shipment.
There was an interesting article in Shipping Digest on February 9 about an increase in all-water freight services from Asia to the American East Coast.