re: Nojay UK

The key differentiator I was aiming for was bulk freight, moving stuff like oil, coal, chemicals, limestone, gravel, cement etc. from producer to plant. A lot of that sort of heavy materials is transported long distances by rail because it is not cost-effective shipping it by road. 20 tonnes of coal is worth less than a thousand bucks and shipping it a thousand miles by truck would more than double its price but rail can move that sort of load for cents a mile. What rail can’t do is reverse up to a loading dock in a Walmart out in the boonies and offload twenty thousand bucks worth of Chinese-made gas-fired BBQs, and that’s what’s in the 18-weeler in front of you on the interstate.

I live in Kent, WA—between the railroad tracks. This is where it all happens. Huge areas of warehouses where all the freight in offloaded from the trains and loaded onto trucks to distribute all over the Seattle-Tacoma area. Gets a little noisy at times.