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 track would have been at least doubled, under wires, and secured using a very advanced standard of positive train control.
- The train would have been several trains, each hauled by electric locomotives.
- The disaster train, at best, would not even have made it out of the yard. At worst, it would have been stopped, and probably directed onto a siding, two towns prior for having a failing bearing.
- Passenger trains would have all the room to run down the track they need.
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.
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
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.
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.
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%?
There is nothing low cost or easy about building coast to coast freight rail. It would take a minimum of 20 years and cost billions.
The US has had a transcontinental railroad network for over a century. The Western US was initially settled largely on railway stops, land grants, and mandatory passenger service. The passenger service was one of the conditions for the land grants.
The US has had a transcontinental railroad network for over a century.
Sure, now try and figure out the expense and time required to build another one NOW, not in 1890 but in 2023. The right of ways alone may take you until 2123 to get sorted out and I really suspect that the Chinese aren’t going to show up to work for pennies a day to build the thing.
The passenger service was one of the conditions for the land grants.
We aren’t talking about Passenger Service. We’re talking about Cargo Service and since we already have one TC Rail System it follows that the meme is agitating that we build another one.
It would take decades and cost billions, probably tens of billions.
That is literally the most dangerous bike lane in existence
I saw the picture first and finished the headline in my mind:
A self-driving freight truck just drove across several cyclists
The buddy of the governor who got the contract lul. At least that’s what happened in my friends small town when they built a roundabout that took 4 years to finish for a small 4 lane intersection that had stops before on a road that got maaaaaybe 12 cars a day
The next self driving truck will be delivering ice to alaska.
Hear me out: trains
I’m sure glad we developed technology just to avoid paying one person to drive that truck. This is progress and will not have knock on consequences. We should celebrate this.
This, but unironically. Automation is a good thing, and every driver who loses their job over this drives the necessity of finding post-automation solutions that much closer to the breaking point.
Oh yes, I’m sure our current socioeconomic systems will get right on finding post automation solutions. That’ll happen real soon now. I mean, it’ll have to happen, right? We won’t just let all the jobs dissolve away so that shareholders get richer, right? That would be crazy to do that. I can’t imagine a society that would possibly do that, could you?
