Atlantic-coast cement barging distribution model

Tom's father worked for a cement company that manufactured at Vinea (likely Ravena), NY and barged to Atlantic-coast depots (Chesapeake VA, Baltimore/Philadelphia). 500–1,000-mile truck-rail limit for low-value-per-pound materials. Cement is the largest manufactured-material volume in the world at ~2B tons/yr.

The material we use in the greatest volume is crushed rock. It has a very low value. These are old numbers, so rather than a tenth of a cent a pound, maybe crushed rock is two cents a pound now. Whatever it is, it's still pretty cheap. The problem with something like that is you can't afford to transport it very far. Who's going to be shipping tons of crushed rock from China to the United States? It doesn't make any sense. Cement is the largest volume of manufactured material in the world — two billion tons a year. We can ship cement around the world if you're going to use slave labor and cheap energy to produce it. But in general, cement plants dot the country because you can't ship it by truck or rail more than about 500 to 1,000 miles.