If containerships are the cheapest way to transport cargo, why aren’t we using canals instead of railways and highways to transport goods over land?

Question

If containerships are the cheapest way to transport cargo, why aren’t we using canals instead of railways and highways to transport goods over land?

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Answer 1

Canals are expensive to build and maintain, and are slow.

Things like the Suez and Panama canals make sense only because they are positioned where a relatively short canal can allow huge ships to shortcut thousands of miles off their journey.

For overland distribution they flatly don’t – the cost and low speed make them impractical vs road or rail. The US, and other places, used to have extensive canal networks across areas that had been settled prior to the advent of rail, because without rail they were much more efficient than horse and cart, but as soon as rail lines were put in the canals were mostly made obsolete as a means of commercial transport.