US Freight Rail Efficiency
The cluster focuses on the superiority of rail over trucks for freight transport in the US, emphasizing that American rail infrastructure is optimized and prioritized for freight rather than passengers, carrying a large share of tonnage compared to Europe.
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Is there something preventing shipping by rail rather than truck?
Aren't railroads much more efficient at transporting freight than trucks are?
Doesn't this have something to do with priority given to freight rail in the US?
Plenty of people use rail in the US just for carrying goods instead of people. It turns out trains are most efficient at hauling large loads with high tolerances for latency, which humans are not and do not have.
American rail is hyper optimized for freight, not people.
The US already moves over 40% of its total hauled tonnage by rail, more than twice that of the next largest economic entity, the EU, which is pushing about 20%. Long haul trucking isn't just competitive because the "subsidy" of not being banned from the federal interstate highway system. Pretty much all the freight that can be economically shipped by rail already is. Rail is inflexible and requires substantial investment in fixed infrastructure to add terminals. Intermodal facilit
Just use freight trains. Way more efficient.
Just notice one important point : in Europe, cargo train is moribund. Virtually everything is moved around by millions of trucks. In the US, it's the other way around, most stuff is moved across the continent by train. They need to be very careful not to sacrifice it for high speed passenger rail.
In the US, rail is optimized for freight, not people.
Nothing is cheaper or more efficient and green then shipping by rail. We used to have an amazing rail network in NA (eu still does) and we basically have letf it fall into ruin and become a shell of what would constitute a functioning railway. It literally has done everything possible to kill passenger rail and make shipping via rail painful / unreliable.If we had not trucking wouldn’t be the only option and we would be better for it<a href="https://m.youtube.com/watch?