Most goods should be shipped by train..Trucks should only be used the last 20 miles or so to destination.
It used to be like that, even small towns had rail spurs. Socialism killed it, with the federal government paying for interstates trucking became cheaper because of course railroads have to pay to maintain their own rail.
Don’t have the rail infsastructre to follow this Environment Nazi pushed rail nonsense. To start with, the rails do not go everywhere people need to ship goods. There aren’t rail depots withing 20 miles of everywhere to ship everything 20 miles away
Also rail is SLOW. It takes 3-5 times longer to move on rail then it does truck. Forget moving anything perishable or time sensitive by rail.
There is no shipping benefit to rail unless you ship bulk goods like grain or oil or have no time sensitivity. Given the almost universality of “just in time” logistics there NO way to ship most goods rail. Customers don’t want to order 3-4 weeks in advance which they would have to do to make rail feasible.
To ship rail you have to pick up the rail container, take it to the loading point, load it, take it back to the rail yard, wait for them to mount it on a rail chassis. Then repeat the whole process at the other end once they finely get it to the end point. In society that wants to order today, have it ship tomorrow and deliver the next day, rail cannot replace trucking. It is too slow, and too limited in where the rails run
In addtion, inJune rail road stop accepting “prioity” shipments because they face a serious shortage of rail containers. They moving all the freight they can right now.
There is no easy solution to the problem. And that is going to be seen in prices soon. My Company spent 2xs what it spent a year ago in shipping costs in June. My bosses just about burst a blood vessel about it and there is not a thing I can do to fix it
It supply and demand in action. Too much demand to ship goods, not enough supply of freight haulers.
Most goods should be shipped by train..Trucks should only be used the last 20 miles or so to destination.”””\
Many goods re. I saw a very long train with 4 diesel locomotives pulling it go thru Fernley, Nevada, yesterday. All the cars behind were holding trailers, many of them Double Decked.
But- Your thought about 20 miles of Truck travel at either end isn’t realistic. You must not have ever driven thru the Western part of the USA.
MANY, many miles of truck travel after the train leaves off it’s load. I was 21 miles from where I live when I saw that train. We have a Dollar General, a Family Dollar, a Subway, a Napa store, and 2 gas stations that have fine tuned the art of piracy in their gas prices. The Standard station is charging 38 Cent a/gallon more than the station in Fernley.
There has to be a large staging yard for train cars to load & unload, also.