Transporting bulk goods via water is the most cost efficient transportion in real life. Currently the best players have is using the industrial barge with multiple trucks on it.
Instead the best mode of transporting goods should be a "Container" ship with either the container being purely a visual element or the containers instead replaced with stockpiles. Visually I could see it being two large stockpiles in the same column and the control tower/driver seat being in the rear. Basically the real life bulk ore transporting ships.
This would allow raw resources or finished goods to be transported around the world in large amounts, allowing more raw ore or crushed ore to be transported at once instead of many trips being required or the full smelting process being done on site to save on transportation.