Thailand's Ambitious Land Bridge Project Gains Global Interest

[Mario Cosmopolite]

11 hours ago, tomazbodner said:

Kra canal 2.0. At least this time it's not involving the nukes to build a canal through Thailand... It was flaring up every 2 decades to squeeze some money out of Singapore to put a stop to it, last around 2003, if I remember correctly. Practicality of Kra canal was actually better than this land bridge... there, ship would just sail through Thailand to the other side, but here the whole ship needs to be offloaded, then stuff transferred by road, and then loaded on another ship to continue... What's the point? Especially as a lot of the stuff is for China, which has ports in Burma that avoid the pirates of Malacca Straits, and are even closer than Thailand to the West and to China...

Myanmar ports are not a practical exit for goods from China to the west, even when Burma was a reasonably stable country.

[Mario Cosmopolite]

13 hours ago, redwood1 said:

This STUPID STUPID STUPID idea is never going to happen......

 

Anybody in 5 minutes can calculate that there would be enormous costs  involved in offloading one ship then loading all the containers onto trucks or a train then re-loading the containers on a different ship.....Plus it would take longer than sailing around...

 

No one is interested in this plan.....Except for the brown envelope boys and the press release monkeys......

 

 

Agreed the rail land bridge was never going to be a sensible project (though that doesn't mean the Chinese wouldn't support it) but I believe this is back to the old canal project.

[Hanuman2547]

Not gonna happen.  A very wide canal would be much better.  This idea has been talked about for over 40 years.  I doubt that would happen but with Chinese financing and some brown envelopes you never know. 

 

Thailand is always concerned that the restive south will break away from the country if such a canal were built thus dividing the country.  

[Jim Blue]

Perhaps a Hyper Loop would work!!!

[NoDisplayName]

5 hours ago, digger70 said:

Too much handling /changing the cargo too many things Can/will go wrong like Damage /Corruption/wasting time  sips not being on time for loading/unloading

 

...........a feature, not a bug.

[NoDisplayName]

13 minutes ago, Hanuman2547 said:

A very wide canal would be much better.

 

Although you'd still have the problems and cost and time involved with unloading the ships, loading the containers into specially designed Chinese square-bodied "container-class" submarines, transiting the canal under solar and/or wind power under green new deal regulations without the need for diesel engines, and then unloading the submarines onto ships for transit to their final destinations.

 

Fortunately, the empty ships will be able to circumnavigate Singapore and steam up the coast faster than the submarines under wind/solar power can transit the canal, thus the containers can be loaded back onto the same ships from whence they were unbeladened!

 

Thailand:  Hub of Rube Goldberg Machinations

 

[Srikcir]

17 hours ago, webfact said:

a staggering cost of 1 trillion Baht

Easily revamp Thailand's electrification system, internal transportation systems, fund government hospitals, support new hi-tech industries, etc.

[NorthernRyland]

9 hours ago, Toby1947 said:

I trillion baht I suspect you could by Thailand for less than that. 

Thailand's GDP is 17 trillion baht per year.

[BayArea]

12 hours ago, NoDisplayName said:

The main problem is that Trump will likely sanction Thailand for building unapproved projects that don't make 'merka great, and even if they do build it, Trump will simply reclaim it and move it to Greenland State.

Trump's living rent free in your head. It didn't take long for some poster to bring up his name. 

[NoDisplayName]

8 minutes ago, BayArea said:

Trump's living rent free in your head. It didn't take long for some poster to bring up his name. 

 

**whoosh**

[Bday Prang]

On 3/25/2025 at 6:56 AM, ozz1 said:

Got to keep the Chinese happy

they will be paying for it (initially at least)

[thesetat]

On 3/25/2025 at 7:28 AM, redwood1 said:

This STUPID STUPID STUPID idea is never going to happen......

 

Anybody in 5 minutes can calculate that there would be enormous costs  involved in offloading one ship then loading all the containers onto trucks or a train then re-loading the containers on a different ship.....Plus it would take longer than sailing around...

 

No one is interested in this plan.....Except for the brown envelope boys and the press release monkeys......

 

 

You say that now. But Thailand may approve China doing it whilst getting into serious debts with them just to appease China. With the current admin and Thaksin running the show next to the PM. Nothing is impossible when it comes to deals with China. 

[Mario Cosmopolite]

On 3/25/2025 at 8:00 AM, blaze master said:

How do I get in on this contract. I would settle with providing only the steel rebar for the concrete.

I'd settle for the wire ties for the steel bars ....

[black tabby12345]

Building a huge bridge that crosses quake-prone region like Sumatra?

That plan hardly looks sensible.

Did they ever forget about the disaster of mega quake & tsunami of Dec.26.2004?

 

If it is struck by the similar force of nature, the human and economic cost will be catastrophic.