this post was submitted on 29 Sep 2023
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The easy, low-cost solution is to build freight rail. But no, that's communism and it doesn't get a tech billionaire their extra billion.
Somehow capitalists all over the world love freight trains. It's just US being dumb as always.
US rail freight is unironically some of the best in the world.
Part of the reason US passenger rail sucks so much is because the network is largely owned by freight companies, so priority always goes to freight over passengers.
US freight rail looks great since for one, the freight railways dominate the scene, and for two, the US is up there in network distance as well as cargo transport volume in tonne kilometers. And of course, they have some very high operating margins.
However, the devil's in the details.
For one, if we redefine the amount of cargo transported to be measured in US Dollar kilometers, they're suddenly doing a trash job. Much of the cargo they move is fungible (it doesn't matter what unit of this cargo you have, any kg is a good kg), bulky and not time sensitive. Things like coal, crude oil or gravel are disproportionately common freights on US rails, compared to other places.
Secondly, they put a lot of trains besides the tracks. I recall seeing they managed to derail about 1700 trains a year. Most other train systems don't even do a tenth of that in a decade, even when corrected for track mileage.
Speaking of track mileage, US railroads actively reduce the amount and quality of track, while bitching & moaning to the government and the press that they're overburdened. Meanwhile, they also operate a procedure of precision scheduled railroading, which I'll spare you the details on, but let's just say it's not precise, it's not scheduled and it's barely railroading, and despite forcing some train crews to sit back and do nothing for hours, it still saves them one train crew. The only time they'll actually expand is because either they really did have a bottleneck for decades, or something catastrophically fails.
On top of that, the freight railroads do everything in their power to avoid capital spending, so they refuse to electrify their lines and/or to install more advanced signalling and train protection. One major fuel shock, and American railroads are on their knees while India, China and most of the EU are laughing. And most signalling is unenforced, or maybe functioning at the tech level of AWS.
You just know that if the train in the East Palestine derailment was run not my Norfolk Southern, but by SBB Cargo, the Swiss national railways' cargo branch, then
The US freight rail industry isn't some of the best in the world, it's actually really quite terrible. It fails to maintain it's infrastructure, can't run to a schedule, frequently loses cargo, and causes ecological disasters. It is good at creating short term profits for shareholders, not being an effective transportation network. If you want more info, here's a video that explains it better.
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US freight rail is fine and a lot of cargo goes by train for the most part. There's still gotta be trucks to get to and from the terminal. Not many facilities have built in rail spurs, or the need to ship an entire train load at once for that matter
I wouldn't call effective rail infrastructure "low-cost".
Cheaper than highways. The reason why long haul trucking exists is because the construction of highways is highly subsidized. Even then, it's often more cost effective to use rail.
railways are a lot more expensive than roadways per km
Citation needed
I'm not that guy, and I'm all for rail, but here's an article that talks about it. https://seattletransitblog.com/2009/10/26/the-highway-vs-fixed-transit-debate/
"While a few rail-transit lines may have had a marginal effect on rush-hour congestion, the cost is exorbitant. The average light-rail line under construction or in planning stages today costs $25 million per mile ($50 million per mile in both directions). Heavy rail costs more than twice as much. By comparison, the average lane mile of freeway costs only about $5 to $10 million."
I might be mistaken, but by that quote and given that every motorway has three lanes in each direction, or at least two I assume in the USA, the cost of the road is at least comparable and at most a bit dearer. I'd even say it constitutes fudging the numbers to pull the wool over.
Only if you compare 3 roads to 1 track. If you're arguing about which costs more then it doesn't make sense to include the cost of the whole 3 lanes as all that traffic doesn't need to go by rail.
Well, the difference is that three lanes of traffic have about the same capacity for passengers as a single railway track, no?
But the average freeway is not 1-lane, but has many lanes. Also roadways have much higher maintenance costs than rail.
Rail maintenance is more expensive than road maintenance
Where can I find those figures in the post you linked?
This is about light rail though, which is usually built in cities (or, at least between a city and its suburbs). So I wonder how much of the cost (for both rail and road) is for land rights.
I wonder if these high costs are due to it being passenger rail inside a major city. I'm curious if this cost applies to freight rail as well.
Out here in the countryside it seems that a mile of freight rail should be worth much less than a mile of highway. Everything from easement size to site prep, equipment needed and bill of materials seems a fraction of that required for highway construction.
As mentioned elsewhere the maintenance is minimal compared to a highway as well, with the trains plowing snow themselves and the rails being very hard-wearing. The only work we ever see them doing on the rail lines is occasionally replacing sleepers and fixing up the road crossings - and it's heavy trucks that ruin those, not the trains.
Yeah, I'd definitely be curious on more detailed numbers.
I know that asking you to Google things is maybe a lot, but isn't the answer pretty obvious if you think about it for more than five seconds?
Roads are made out of what would otherwise be a waste product from refining oil, mixed with dirt. If you just leave it alone, it will basically just sit there.
Rails are made out of steel, which is both expensive and rusts. Tolerances have to be tight. And if you fuck about with maintenance in rail, you get a train derailment.
Idk why you got down voted. It makes sense to me!
compared to highways? absolutely low-cost.
I wouldn't exactly call removing nature and laying down the track "easy" either. That's tens of thousands of miles of steel carving through the terrain.
Also, we have a ton of rail, it's just prioritized for freight over passenger transit. A high speed passenger rail network would be nice though.
compared to a 5 lane highway its a pittance - theres a reason why private rail companies can exist but private road companies largely don't.
The problem is there's a lot more federal funding for the shittier solution so when budgetting are you going to build the thing the feds will pay 100% or 0%?
why would a private company pay for a new road when the government will build that infrastructure for them? and even if they would, why on earth would they build a 5 lane highway solely for private use?
in either case, a rail line is still more expensive than a highway
thats the thing though, a rail line can pay for itself, a road often can't. Its easy to "create a new branch road" but when you add in all the externalized maintenance factors: policing traffic, emergencies, fueling stations, stormwater management, the costs per user, the costs per user per mile traveled, land use requirements per user (4 parking stalls per vehicle, multiple vehicles per person) etc.
They often cannot pay for themselves, hence why the subsidies are necessary and why things like big box stores with huge parking lots are a net drain on most communities (its not just the low wages)
If they could pay for themselves we'd see more companies that just build and rent private roads like train companies do.
it's kind of an agenda pushing shit to compare high speed rail with highways, high speed railroads compete with airplanes not cars, on a regular track you can reach 150km/h easily and those cost a fraction and that's already more than the 130km/h limit of highways in Europe
German HSR trains go about 250km/h on regular and over 350km/h on HSR-specific tracks
it's also dishonest to insist that every road you build needs to be a four lane highway, so i thought it about averaged out
Rails are indeed one of the cheapest, best scaling, and most reliable ways to move goods no doubt, but it also has a last mile problem.
Just wanted to point out the solution isn’t as easy as “rails all things”. Trucks still do offer some situational advantages, and will still have their place in logistics.
I agree with the sentiment, but did you not notice the "across the country" part of the title?
Fair response. It’s likely due to the lack of rail infrastructure why this delivery was “across the country”. Rails are typically much cheaper per ton-mile than trucks. If a rail alternative existed, I’m fairly certain the economics would have forced the use of trains.
However, I’d say the self driving part is still be a benefit that would improve truck utilization rate.
I did some digging. According to the article, the route went from Tulare, CA to Quakertown, PA. OpenRailwayMap is really good for this. Both have freight rail lines running directly through the heart of the town. Going by destination alone, this is kind of a pointless operation. Then again, the point was more to demonstrate the possibility of an autonomous truck rather than whether that particular route made any sense.
If it can be done economically, it'll be done. And it has been, the freight rail network in the US is huge.