feeling railroaded, page-16

Air transport? Not a completely daft idea to put forward, particularly if you listen to what the airship manufacturers are trying to say; here are a few examples:

http://www.theage.com.au/business/introducing-skylifter-a-new-giant-of-the-sky-20101007-168v8.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/greenertransport/8739368/New-generation-of-airships-to-transport-goods-around-the-world.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/30/blimps-aircraft-freight

http://www.aerospace-technology.com/projects/cargolifter/

http://www.dynalifter.com/page19.html

However, these things will only carry maybe 100 tonnes per trip (the same as a 747 cargo plane) and with iron ore we are talking about tens of millions of tonnes per year. The whole airship idea is pretty comprehensively shot-down here:

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2011/05/27/helium-hokum-why-airships-will-never-be-part-of-our-transportation-infrastructure/

Air transport is used for high-value, low-volume commodities such as gold, but AGO needs to move low-value (relative to gold), high-volume iron ore, so road, rail, conveyors and ships are the only options.