When you think of ports, you probably picture bustling docks, towering cranes, sea spray, salty air, and massive cargo ships rolling in from Shanghai or Singapore. You probably don’t picture the high desert plains of northwestern Nevada, 500 miles from the nearest tide pool and roughly one million nautical miles from anything remotely resembling a coastline. But that hasn’t stopped local visionaries from opening the next BIG port, which is dry, dusty, and entirely devoid of boats.
The Port of Oakland has long been a West Coast shipping giant, but it’s got problems including congestion, union disputes, rent prices that require a second mortgage on your first mortgage, and seagulls that judge you.
Nevada, on the other hand, offers ample space to store over 14,000 shipping containers, with room to spare. With affordable rent, good-paying jobs, and the possibility of owning a real home, in your spare time, you can fish Pyramid Lake, a landlocked lake with water 1/6 the salinity of seawater. If fishing in a salty lake isn’t your thing, freshwater Lake Tahoe is a short drive away, where hiking, water sports, or winter activities await.
Landlocked, the Port of Nevada lacks an ocean, lake, or even a respectable puddle. As it turns out, water isn’t always necessary. On our northern and southern borders, there are almost 170 existing land ports.
After arriving by ship in Oakland, containers will be moved by train over Donner Pass and the Sierra Nevadas, through a large city within feet of a major interstate. Now, what could possibly go wrong with that plan???
Here’s how it working:
- Containers arrives in Oakland by sea.
- They’re immediately transferred onto train cars.
- Those trains travel 5.5 hours inland.
- Someone at the Port of Nevada yells, “Ship it!” to feel important.
- The cargo goes back on trucks or trains.
- It continues to its final destination.
Efficiency? Pretty low.
Public Safety? Could be threatened.
Is it already up and running? Absolutely. Just drove by the place yesterday.
Currently, the Port of Nevada staff is working to flatten mountains of sand undisturbed since before the days of covered wagons. Expanding daily, rail traffic has, indeed, increased. New fencing borders our fine port, and now there’s even talk of a new airport on the edge of town. All this excitement builds while colorful containers are stacked up in neat rows, like at a real port. Let’s hope the contents can withstand extreme desert temperatures while waiting to leave for their final destinations.
Anyone who lives in our town knows the seagulls and white pelicans have been planning this for some time. With breeding grounds at Lake Pyramid, all we need is some salt-air breezes and we’ll be set.
Never seeing an actual ship, the Port of Nevada represents something more powerful than global trade. There is at least one person in this world who person thinking out of the box to come up with new solutions to age-old problems. Why not truck the materials to a state where union membership is a personal choice? Why not ship containers by rail to an inland port on the other side of the Sierras? After all, does every port need to sit next to the ocean?
So, the next time you order something online and it arrives six weeks late with some sand on the box, just smile. It probably passed through The Port of Nevada, the premier ocean-less port.
Ahoy, desert sailors, Ahoy.
