[RedWhiteBlue]

Think again. How the heck do you think all of that "local delivery" occurs all over the country? Do you think they have rail lines going to distribution centers that serve only that neighborhood for each of those items? Sheesh.

Just for the USPS alone, I know for a fact that there is ONE distribution center here on the north edge of town, and from there they have to distribute to more than a hundred post offices that serve around 5 million people. And that is just here, in one city. Guess what, they don't move the mail from the distribution center to the individual post offices by rail. They do it mostly on interstate highways. I see their trucks all the time. When I track a UPS ground package, it does move via ground. Even an express package goes to a distribution center about 475 miles from here (Sweetwater, TX), then it is driven to a distribution center about 5 miles away (Stafford), then it is driven here -- and in each of those steps except for the last it goes via interstate highway.

Very few businesses have rail sidings. I have never seen a bakery with one like you mention. I just happen to live in a town named Sugar Land, aptly named because of the plant here that once made sugar. Now ithe company only operates a distribution center here, and it services most of the deep south. There are trucks coming out of that place night and day, and I know it isn't going only to my local Kroger. It services much of the southern US.

Your town must be heavily industrialized with tank farms everywhere. Here, our gasoline terminals are about 50 miles away, on the other side of Houston, and trucks are contstantly in there filling up to serving thousand and thousands of gas stations not only all the way on my side of town but also the far reaches of the state where there are no tank farms.

I worked for twenty years in the chemical industry, and for much of it I was involved in supply chain issues. There's an industry that you rely upon heavily, whether you know it or not. If you want to export something, of course it goes by tanker -- after it is moved by truck a couple of times before it hits the ship's rail. And with some commodities, pipelines are great, but there are very few products that are well suited to pipelines. But only the largest customers -- like P&G, etc, can take rail cars of 20,000 gallons per shipment. Most everyone else gets their goods via truck, 5000 gallons or so at a pop. Want 80 drums to ship from an east Texas chemical plant to Seattle? It is sent by truck, all the way. Send it by rail, it could take more than a week longer to get there. A huge volume of petrochemicals is moved long distances all over the country by truck as the only means of transport.

The BEST distributor in any US business BY FAR is Walmart. Other retail businesses have tried to hire their employees to find out their secrets. And they move everything around (once it gets here from China '-) ) by TRUCK. Those damn things are all over the highways.

We all depend on goods and services that depend on effecient distribution and highways are a crucial part of that. No matter what you say, I know you are no different than anyone else in this regard. Your own supply chain in your little world might be simple, but there is a big infrastructure behind it that makes that possible, and it depends heavily on our highways.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

How the heck do you think all of that "local delivery" occurs all over the country? Do you think they have rail lines going to distribution centers that serve only that neighborhood for each of those items?

Obviosuly not.

Very few businesses have rail sidings. I have never seen a bakery with one like you mention.

Every major bakery and snack food manufacturer around here receives their inbound flour and sugar by rail (Hostess, Tastycake, Amoroso, Herr's, Bachman, etc.). These are bakeries that use 1-3 railcars per day of flour (200,000 lbs.). The smaller ones tend to either get more expensive flour from a local mill, or truck in flour from the railroad bulk terminal. Corn Syrup is brought in by rail to three large distribution centers nearby and trucked locally. Edible oils come to the railroad's bulk terminal near the port and are trucked from there on an as needed basis using the tank car as mobile storage.

This type of pattern is typical for the whole northeast.

Your town must be heavily industrialized with tank farms everywhere. Here, our gasoline terminals are about 50 miles away, on the other side of Houston, and trucks are contstantly in there filling up to serving thousand and thousands of gas stations not only all the way on my side of town but also the far reaches of the state where there are no tank farms.

We have six major refineries in and around Philadelphia - Sunoco (Marcus Hook, Westville, and Philadelphia), Valero (Paulsboro), Conoco-Phillips (Trainer), and Motiva (Delaware City). They have pipelines all over the place and send out most product to suburban and rural tank farm terminals around the northeast (there are 11 in just 1/4 of the arc surrounding Philadelphia inside Pennsylvania to a radius of 50 miles). LPG and ethanol is moved in tank cars, however, as are by products like cyclohexane and molten sulfur. Some fuel oil is moved to a nearby power plant by rail. We don't truck oil products across the state - that's what pipelines were built to do so we don't clog our highways with Hazmat tankers. Product is also sent by barge as well to marine terminals between Virginia and Maine and inland up to Albany.

Want 80 drums to ship from an east Texas chemical plant to Seattle? It is sent by truck, all the way. Send it by rail, it could take more than a week longer to get there.

I'd be very surprised if a truckload from Texas to Seattle was not sent by rail as an intermodal shipment. Its simply too far to truck economically when a train can haul hundreds of trailers for less in the same amount of time. It doesn't take a week for the intermodal shipment either.

The BEST distributor in any US business BY FAR is Walmart. Other retail businesses have tried to hire their employees to find out their secrets. And they move everything around (once it gets here from China '-) ) by TRUCK. Those damn things are all over the highways.

All those Chinese goods in overseas containers come into the Port of LA and Long Beach, are put onto a train, and sent to the nearest intermodal yard to the distribution centers. From there they are trucked locally to Walmart. Walmart only delivers to its stores. This same pattern is evident with most large retailers (Home Depot, Lowes, Target, Sears, GE, etc.).

We all depend on goods and services that depend on effecient distribution and highways are a crucial part of that. No matter what you say, I know you are no different than anyone else in this regard. Your own supply chain in your little world might be simple, but there is a big infrastructure behind it that makes that possible, and it depends heavily on our highways.

I never said it didn't, but that is hardly a justification for spending my gas tax money subsidizing the commute of highway drivers. I pay my fair share for that use if/when I chose to buy those products.