1. Context

Intermodal transportation has permitted land transport systems to make up for detours imposed by continental masses with transcontinental bridges (also known as landbridges). This crucial transport chain mainly relies on the maritime / railway interface, which was considerably improved by double-stacking trains (enabling to stack two containers and doubling the capacity) but also by more efficient port and rail terminals. There are two major characteristics of a landbridge freight service. First, there is a single bill of lading issued by the freight forwarder that covers the entire intermodal journey. Second, the goods remain in the same container for the entire journey.

One of the first landbridges was implemented in the 1880s by Canadian Pacific Railway. Its goal was to improve the shipping time of high value Asian commodities, notably silk and tea, from the Far East to Europe (and also the US eastern seaboard), using Canada's transcontinental rail link. The so-called "silk trains" disappeared in the first two decades of the 20th century. In 1979, American Presidents Line (APL) ran the first dedicated express container TOFC train across the United States between Los Angeles and New York via Chicago. In 1985, a revolution was achieved by APL with the introduction of double-stack container rail services. Shipping companies were particularly eager to see the emergence of these type of services as using the Panamal Canal incurred substantial delays. In 2004, the first doublestacking rail service in China began, linking Shanghai and Beijing.

The two main continental bridges include the trans-America railway and the immense Europe-Asia link that covers Siberia and ends at the pacific coast of Russia.

2. Types of Landbridges

Three major types of landbridges can be identified:

• Landbridge. The rail system is used as a link between a foreign origin and destination. The continental mass is simply used as a link between two maritime services. The transport mode is almost exclusively rail because it is faster, if more expansive than maritime transportation. An example would be to ship a container from Tokyo to Europe by using the North American Landbridge.
• Minibridge. It involves a foreign origin but the destination is a port reached from another port of the same continental mass. The TranSiberian was the first minibridge to be in operation in 1967 linking harbors of the pacific coast to harbors of Baltic and Atlantic coasts of Europe. Problems of railway gauging between Russia and Western Europe however impose some delays as rail cargo needs to be transloaded.
• Microbridge. It involves a link between a foreign origin and an inland destination via a port of entry. The minibridge and the microbridge took more time to become implanted in North America because of the regulation of the maritime and railway sectors that impeded collaboration (such as joint ventures) among companies of different transport sectors.