Inter-island Bridges Are Not Always the Answer: Why Train Ferries Make More Sense for an Archipelago
By Karl Garcia
Whenever congestion worsens and ferries back up, the instinctive solution is familiar: build a bridge. Fixed links promise permanence, speed, and economic integration. For island nations, they are often framed as symbols of progress.
But in a storm-battered, earthquake-prone archipelago like the Philippines, bridges can also be symbols of fragility.
Inter-island bridges may decongest ferries, but they create a different problem: they lock mobility into immovable infrastructure exposed 24/7 to typhoons, seismic faults, storm surges, and long-term climate stress. Once damaged, a bridge does not detour—it fails.
There is a quieter, less glamorous alternative that deserves serious attention: cargo train ferries and rail ferries, where freight—and even passengers—cross seas without leaving their trains.
The Problem with Fixed Links in a Dynamic Environment
Bridges work best where nature is predictable. The Philippines is not.
Long-span bridges in tropical seismic zones must be designed for:
- Extreme wind loading
- Strong currents and wave action
- Liquefaction-prone seabeds
- Active fault lines
- Accelerated corrosion from salt and humidity
This pushes costs dramatically upward—not just in construction, but in maintenance for decades. And when something goes wrong, the consequences are binary: open or closed. There is no flexibility.
Climate change only sharpens the dilemma. Higher design standards mean higher costs. Ignoring them means higher risk. Either way, bridges become high-stakes bets.
Rail Ferries: Floating Bridges with an Off Switch
Rail ferries flip the logic.
Instead of forcing nature to accommodate infrastructure, they allow infrastructure to adapt to nature.
Rail ferries carry:
- Freight wagons
- Container flats
- Fuel cars
- Even full passenger coaches
Cargo rolls on at one port and rolls off at another—no unloading, no rehandling, no cargo exposure. When seas are rough, operations pause. When storms pass, service resumes. Damage is limited to ports and vessels, which are far quicker to repair than collapsed spans.
In disaster management, this distinction matters.
You cannot “turn off” a bridge during an earthquake.
You can delay a sailing.
This Is Not a New or Experimental Idea
Rail ferries are proven technology.
- Italy still runs train ferries across the Strait of Messina, choosing them over a mega-bridge in a highly seismic zone.
- Germany once carried passenger trains directly onto ferries across the Fehmarn Belt, with travelers remaining in their coaches.
- Japan, before the Seikan Tunnel, relied on rail ferries in some of the world’s roughest seas.
- China operates high-capacity rail ferries across the Bohai Sea to reduce logistics costs and emissions.
- Russia uses them to connect isolated rail networks in extreme climates.
These are not poor countries avoiding progress. They are pragmatic states managing risk.
Why Rail Ferries Make Sense for the Philippines
First, freight matters more than cars.
Most inter-island congestion is not caused by tourists—it is caused by food, fuel, construction materials, and consumer goods. Every time cargo is unloaded from trucks, transferred to ships, then reloaded on the other side, costs rise and delays multiply.
Rail ferries eliminate this inefficiency.
Second, they scale gradually.
A bridge must be fully funded and completed before delivering any benefit. A rail ferry system can start with one route, a few vessels, and basic port upgrades—then expand as demand grows.
Third, they support redundancy.
One bridge serves one alignment forever. A ferry fleet can be rerouted, reassigned, or doubled during peak demand or emergencies. Redundancy is not a luxury in an archipelago; it is survival infrastructure.
Fourth, they integrate naturally with multimodal transport.
Rail ferries connect ports to inland logistics hubs, dry ports, and industrial zones. They support cleaner freight movement and reduce dependence on long-haul trucking—a major source of congestion, emissions, and road damage.
Bridges vs. Rail Ferries: A Strategic Comparison
Bridges offer speed and symbolism—but little flexibility.
Rail ferries offer resilience, adaptability, and system efficiency.
In a country regularly hit by typhoons and earthquakes, the question is not which is more impressive, but which fails more gracefully.
A Smarter Infrastructure Conversation
This is not an argument against bridges. Some crossings will justify them. But treating bridges as the default solution reflects a continental mindset, not an archipelagic one.
A smarter strategy would ask:
- Where does freight dominate over private vehicles?
- Where are fault lines active or waters deep?
- Where would flexible routing reduce disaster risk?
- Where can rail, ports, and industry be integrated instead of isolated?
In many cases, the answer will not be concrete and steel fixed to the seabed—but steel wheels rolling onto a ship.
The Bottom Line
Infrastructure is not just about moving faster. It is about recovering faster.
For the Philippines, rail ferries offer a way to decongest routes, strengthen supply chains, and adapt to a volatile climate—without betting everything on structures that cannot move when the earth or sea does.
Sometimes, the most resilient bridge is one that floats.
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
Infrastructure should be built in order of capacity weighed by difficulty.
For example: Rail infrastructure is complicated where the rail lines must transverse discontinuous routes; more complicated by complicated terrain and/or lack of right-of-way. The Philippines is unfortunate here since even if the major islands are counted considerable distance separates each major island and each major island themselves have difficult terrain to pass through. All these greatly complicate and increase the cost of rail infrastructure. I think that rail infrastructure would be important for the Philippines, but be limited initially to carrying bulk cargo to further integrate the internal Philippines economy. In addition ferries have fallen out of favor in most of the world because they just don’t make sense in an era of panel vans, semi-trailer trucks, and light passenger vehicles, all which are more flexible.
Instead, consider a combination of RORO ferries and LOLO ferries. RORO are mixed use and can carry both passengers and cargo. Some RORO ferries can carry standardized containers as well, either the containers upon detached trailers or loaded via crane. LOLO ferries are for cargo purposes and are essentially small container cargo ships for regional use. LOLO ferries would use port-side cranes to load and unload containers, just like an ocean-going container cargo ship.
When I approach problems that need to be solved, I tend to stick with as simple a solution as possible to reasonably accomplish the goal. The goal here is to further integrate the regional, domestic and export economies with infrastructure. I just think that train ferries are too complicated. Much of the complication is actually not in the train ferry itself, but due to the fact that rail infrastructure needs to be built out beforehand on land, and that rail infrastructure needs to be interoperable, on the same gauge, and on the same standards. If trains and containerized rail owned by various groups and corporations are transversing a given section of rail, it would also make more sense for the government to own such rail infrastructure as privately owned tracks may not give access to rivals. Given these risks, and given the fact that rail ferries and dockside rail depots are usually *extensions* of existing rail infrastructure rather than rail infrastructure existing because of dockside rail depots, and given the additional fact that road infrastructure is more flexible for mixed-use, it would make more sense to build out the national road infrastructure for general use first. Important to remember that the transnational rail networks of countries that went through the First Industrial Revolution were purpose built for specific connections between industrial and labor centers. National level rail networks back then, and now, were built to carry cargo and passengers along known and fixed destinations, which in some instances can greatly increase efficiencies but when used generally becomes a quick money sink. Rail is inherently inflexible.
Hi Joey!
I missed your comments.
You can back read anytime, though it is same old same old. And you csn comment here.
Anyways your KISS presription
should be prescribed even to monday morning quarter backs figurong out WHICH came frst or Who is on third.
Well I think rail infrastructure is a must for the Philippines, but rail is more useful for point-to-point connections contained within a region or land mass. So it is of utmost importance for a trans-Luzon and (probably even more so) for a trans-Mindanao rail system to transport goods. Leyte-Samar would also be a good candidate for a trans-Leyte-Samar rail system as well. These rail systems should be connecting industrial centers (factories and raw material extraction/processing sites) with import/export/cargo centers (ports mainly, secondarily cargo airports which don’t currently exist).
For inter-island connect rail is less useful. Train ferries have largely fallen out of favor long ago for the reasons I opened in my previous comment, chiefly the greater flexibility of road transport. We must remember that the heyday of rail being the main form of mass transport AND cargo was during the period prior to the proliferation of automobiles and trucks. And even then cargo was the original reason for rail transport. I consider light rail to be more of an extension of urban mass transport, and would be in a different category.
Inter-island bridges (which would not preclude bridges that also carry rail) would still be more efficient for transport, though of course the island topology of the Philippines and the sea depth of the channels separating major island groups is a problem. But not as much as a problem as the consistent lack of funding and engineering capacity.
But either inter-island bridges and rail are more complicated to achieve. It would make more sense in the short-to-medium term to improve and build out road infrastructure which sucks in most parts of the Philippines, and connect islands using RORO and LOLO ferries. When crafting a solution one must be wary of seemingly “perfect” solutions that require ideal situations. I always tell my engineers: aim for good enough while covering known risks. Energy should be saved to tackle new risks that emerge later. More complicated solutions can be built atop completed projects. Being able to finish something comparatively “simple” builds momentum and confidence to be able to do bigger things later.
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Yeah thanks Karl. Interestingly internet connectivity in a war-torn country such as Ukraine was better than cellular signal in rural Philippines. I gave up on trying to connect after a while and fell back to getting the news through the “tita network” aka chika. Apparently my 5+ year old iPhone does not support certain common cellular bands used by Smart and Globe. Philippine telcos barely got onto the eSIM bandwagon last year to begin with. Our work here was largely a success. A few dozen solar irrigation pumps installed, tied to a microcontroller of my own design, bringing drip irrigation to hundreds of calamansi in the hills and mountains of Zamboanga Sibugay and Zamboanga del Norte.
My thinking was Minda goods to Luzon.
Hoping that importing would no longer be cheaper if we can get goods from Viszmin cheap
Even transport within a relatively small island like Cebu is terrible. If I were infrastructure czar I would fix local issues first before national integration. Until then inter-island links need only to be “good enough.”
Take for example Cebu island. The rural seaside municipality of Boljoon is a producer of high quality vegetables and seafood. Boljoon is 104 km (64.6 mi) from Cebu City, yet it takes over 3 hours to travel between Boljoon and Cebu City on a good day with no traffic. In the US 100 km can be traveled in less than an hour, even with traffic. As a consequence any perishable goods produced in Boljoon would be greatly reduced in quality by the time those goods reach Cebu City. I have hitched rides in the back of panel vans and box trucks, including from Boljoon to Cebu City, sitting alongside vegetables actively withering in the heat while stuck in traffic. Cebu province is probably too small for a rail network, so improved road infrastructure is more appropriate here. Possibly Cebu and Bohol can be linked by rail via an inter-island bridge which has been proposed from time to time for decades now.
But yes, Visayas and Mindanao can be a producer of agricultural goods for NCR if high speed ferries with refrigerated cargo holds (or refrigerated containers) are used. Remember that ferries are extensions of transport infrastructure and are largely useless if not connected to land-based road/rail infrastructure. The rapid loss of Luzonian agricultural lands is alarming, while the assumption of “we will just make new agricultural land in Mindanao” is unrealistic as much of those theoretical Mindanaoan agricultural lands are still virgin forest/jungle.
Many thanks for your inputs.
Good to hear about your activities, more power!