TheRailwire
General Discussion => Prototype Railroads: News, Photos, Research => Topic started by: randgust on September 02, 2016, 08:58:15 AM
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I can't imagine this won't at least mess up somebody's shipping and delivery schedules here for China-produced models, and who knows who else.....
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/hanjin-bankruptcy-global-shipping-chaos-retail-fears-41810651
When railroads go bankrupt/shut down there's things like directed service orders from connecting carriers, I have no idea what precedent is in international marine trade if your entire container gets stuck on a ship.
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Wow. I wonder if the private sector, government, or someone/something else will step in to guarantee some of the payment for unloading the ships to get things moving? It will be interesting to watch this unfold for sure...
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This has been in the news for a bit. There is a Hanjin ship tied offshore at Prince Rupert in limbo and no doubt many more like it.
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I would think that if anybody would help it would be the Korean government. But with what sounds like quite a few ships seizing the cargo that it maybe too late. If the investment bank won't help them the debt load must be over whelming.
Tom
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Wow... this is huge, really. The cheap, reliable, reasonably fast "pipeline" is what makes the whole China process possible. As the hobby has discovered, the Chinese on their own have become less than reliable, and now the "you might not get it at all, or anytime soon" from the shipping aspect really puts a kink in things. It's a classic case of "economies of size" versus "eggs all in one basket".
I was reading a business analysis on this and there will be some short-term scrambling for capacity, taking two or three months to level out. So the appearances are that what is "parked" will not resolve for goods to be unloaded in time and make distribution for the holiday buying frenzy. The various retailer associations are already screaming bloody murder about millions or billions in losses.
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The problem is exceedingly low shipping rates and excess shipping capacity combined with over leveraged shipyards/shippers. They are already scrapping ships earlier than years pass. Finding a shipper won't be the immediate problem, it is the crews and goods on the Hanjin ships at sea. The Korean Government said enough.
It will pretty much look like the PC bankruptcy, hopefully a bunch of Conrail 's will arise.
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Shanghai to LA shipping prices are already up, from $1100 to $1700 per container. This will hurt...
Otto K.
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Oh, the webs we weave. :|
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So much for "just in time" delivery. You gotta wonder if the people who come up with these modern business concepts (usually to avoid taxes) ever knew that nothing runs forever, things break down, systems collapse, parts of the supply chain disappear unexpectedly. I guess not -- they're only focused on hitting the company profit goal that month so they get a big bonus. Idiots.
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Correction: You must EXCEED the company profit goals to get the big bonus. Profits are the life blood of any business.
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And achieving high profits at any social, moral, legal or humanitarian cost is the highest goal of all.
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This has been in the news for a bit. There is a Hanjin ship tied offshore at Prince Rupert in limbo and no doubt many more like it.
Entry to port refused for 27 ships, feel sorry for the crews.
http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2016-09-02/hanjin-bankruptcy-causes-global-shipping-chaos-retail-fears
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Well, now we have an excuse as to why holiday sales will be down compared to last year. :facepalm:
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Maybe this is push that's needed to re-think getting everything made in China. I certainly hope so.
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Hanjin is Korean ROK, not China PRC. Your Lucky Goldstar (LG) and other Korean Chaebol will feel the pinch first.The ROK government thought it best to stop the bleeding and they will find a suitor for Hanjin assets, There is an overcapacity in the maritime industry, ships, shipyards etc. this happens all the time in transportation and all forms of business. Think USA railroads in the 1970's or Airlines in the last 30 years, yet they are still operating. The global supply chain has worked well except for the rare hiccup for the last 200 years plus.
Just in time I believe refers to manufacturing, can't tell you all the neat stuff I have seen in the back of the Zenith o' TexMex aeronautical engineering because some one needed it now to keep the line rolling. Container ships while very efficient in endothermic/economic terms is not the quickest means to move stuff out there, that is why we still have warehouses.
P.S. China shipping lines and yards are consolidating, the signs aren't good
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Welp, looks like Hanjin has gone belly up. From what I hear, they can't even pay port fees or fuel for ships, so ships are going to be stuck all over the place with full holds. Here in Seattle, one Hanjin was offloading when things went down, but customs fees hadn't been paid, so now a half a ship's load worth of containers is stuck on the dock and can't be moved, causing all sorts of problems.
One of Hanjin's biggest customers was Samsung, with whom they had an exclusive contract. So, if you want a Samsung device, you'd better buy it now.
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http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37241727 (http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37241727)
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Ooops, I posted about this in the proto forum. Maybe the mods could combine threads?
From what I understand, Hanjin had exclusive shipping with samsung. That not only is going to directly hit consumers, but also the electronics industry as a whole, since Samsung makes a significant amount of silicon.
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"Just in time", at least in the auto industry, works great - in Japan. Most of their manufacturing is on the east coast of the main island, where shipping distances are small, population and factory density is high, and it's all in one country. Other than earthquakes and typhhons there's little to go wrong.
It doesn't work so well in North America, where distances are large, there's a lot of open space, and few people, between the manufacturing centers, and we're dealing with three countries. There are simply too many ways. and places, for something to go wrong. But the entire auto industry seems to have the mindset that "Japan knows how it should be done". Our filter factory is constantly running out of parts and materials simply because "keeping/making inventory is not the way it's done". Everything is to be made as it's ordered/needed, because anything sitting is a waste - until the supply chain is disrupted.
I asked the production manager if he'd heard about the Italian earthquake, as our head offices are in Italy. He said no, because the news is "all depressing", so he doesn't read/watch/listen to any of it. I wonder if they even know that our Asian shipments are in trouble yet?
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I think that inventories are kept lean nowadays because I vaguely remember some time back that the tax laws were re-written regarding values of stored materials. IIRC there had been some kind of tax allowance or deduction for unsold stock but that got abolished or changed to a tax charge, so companies, businesses and retailers went to trying to maintain only the barest amount of stock, hoping instead to fill shortages by quick shipments inbound. That also includes spare parts; they turned into a tax liability so nobody wanted to keep them on hand.
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Don't forget about Hyundai Merchant Marine, they had reduced their fleet and I am of the understanding that some of the moth balled ships are being pressed back in to service.
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https://www.porttechnology.org/news/hyundai_merchant_marine_buys_hanjin
Hyundai Merchant Marine has purchased the assets. Everything should be back to normal for Hanjin ships in a few days. The ship companies should be happy now that the rates have risen.
Tom
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"Hyundai Merchant Marine has purchased the assets."
As someone earlier said, more or less what happens with most railroad failures in North America. If the railroad itself is needed, someone will acquire it. Only if the business has no business, or others are already in position to serve the same customers, will it actually be abandoned.
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Just thinking, I was planning on buying Kato's N scale AOK stack cars with Hanjin containers for my layout. It sounded like a good idea at the time. http://www.katousa.com/N/MAXI-I/106-6156.jpg
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I'm sure there will be Hanjin containers around for some time. I was talking to the "assistant manager" at the new Prichard Intermodal Park awhile back, and he recommended that our plant NOT buy its own container, if we decided to ship parts that way. He said that, once the container has been sent out, we'd never get it back! If that's the case, and they end up roaming endlessly, Hanjin containers may be around a LONG time.
For what it's worth, I think we would get ours back, but it probably doesn't matter, as I can't see the company changing form less-than-truckload shipments to containers. If ours were set up to handle specific dunnage, for a specific customer, they'd be sending the empty dunnage back, so the container would be loaded both ways. But I don't make decisions for the company, so we'll never know.
And, the "assistant manager" used air quotes himself. The terminal isn't actually running yet, so he and the manager are the only two people there!
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Sure feels good to be working for Micro-Trains right now
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Sure feels good to be working for Micro-Trains right now
:D :D
(https://d1sui4xqepm0ps.cloudfront.net/categories/damn-it-feels-good-to-be-?foo=bar)
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Sure doesn't sound like its solved yet:
http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/samsung-asks-u-s-court-help-remove-ghost-cargo-bankrupt-n645376