re: #309 Reality Based Steve

Where trains should (and do) shine is moving large bulky things long distances cheaply and efficiently. I foresee a day not long off where 90% of the freight hauling from ports / Manufacturers / Distributors is done by train, with OTR trucks taking the ‘Last Mile’ of it to the destination.
RBS

They do that already. There’s just so much of it that needs “Last Mile” on the road and it’s in front of you on the highway. The real mass-mover in the US is rail anyway, stuff like hundreds of millions of tonnes of coal getting transported thousands of miles from the mines to the power stations around the country — the Labadie power station complex near St. Louis goes through about ten million tonnes a year and that’s just one consumer. What you see on the roads is a fraction of the freight moved every day.