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Comment by zspade | Hacker News Reader

This comment invariably pops up in these threads; If it was going to, it already would have.. It's too late now.

Would it have been a better solution? Probably, but the investment required (laying down the rails, land buyouts, copious use of emanate domain, political greasing of the wheels, etc...) has always been prohibitive. The gains would be shared between many disparate groups that would need to fund this together, taking years to decades for any ROI - certainly a longer time-frame than most publicly traded, quarterly measured, corporations can afford. At the least this would have required some government subsidization.

With driver-less tech around the corner, returns on this investment for any one company become even more dubious, and thus make it less likely to happen. I think the parent comment here will always get some up-votes, but that is as far as I see this going anymore. Maybe it'd go farther if we threw in words like 'Hyperloop' ;)

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The rails are already there. When I drive down I5, you can see them.

The reason this sorry state of affairs exists is because truck traffic is heavily subsidized (highways paid for with taxes) whereas rail traffic is heavily taxed (and the rail companies have to pay for the tracks).

It could be improved by increasing weight taxes on trucks, and using the proceeds to subsidize intercity tracks.

Yeah the impact on roads increases with the fourth power of vehicle weight. Why doesn't the tax?

Truck industry lobbying.

There's a lot to this. But it's not just about lobbying, it's also about unions and votes. The American auto dealerships likewise have a lot of what's described as "lobbying power" when really it's more that they have a lot of people that want to see politicians protect them.

Many trucks in the US have a bumper sticker that says, "Without trucks, America stops." Teamster strikes, like the León Vilarín teamster strike in October 1972 in Chile, are a disaster for any country and create national emergencies.

I read years ago that truck loaded to the legal weight limit causes 9,000 times as much fatigue damage as a car. And lots of trucks are overloaded.

At least trucks are carrying something we all need, unlike cars.

Even in France, with paying interstate (called autoroute here) and subsidized rail (it was a state monopole until recently), most of transport of goods is by truck.

I think it's mostly a last mile problem (you'll need big trucks to carry from the station), compounded by the fact that most of the train station of cities and I don't think they is a lot of dedicated cargo train station. Also you do not control part of the schedule: you are dependent on the departure/arrival time of trains. And don't forget the strikes...

I believe SNCF was also know for loosing freight a few years ago. Might have improved these days since I assume most cars must have some sort of GPS. Timing was another problem since freight had to yield priority to passenger traffic, which is pretty dominant in France.

Europe generally prioritises passenger transport over freight transport, but there are rail freight terminals -- probably not anywhere you're likely to visit (example [1])

Rail traffic is allocated on a timetable, for both passenger and goods trains. The time and route is called a "path" in British English, and reserving one costs money.

A power station might have a daily path from a port to their power plant, as they can reliably use all the coal.

Rail freight companies book many paths between freight terminals, container ports and so on and mix together goods from many customers to run on trains on these paths. Therefore, the timings are reliable, potentially more reliable than by road, but the flexibility is less.

If there aren't any goods to move, the company doesn't need to use the path. (I used to live close to a railway line used to transfer trains containing nuclear waste. The reprocessing plant had a path to run a train every day, but only used it every couple of weeks -- presumably, they don't like leaving the waste at the power station any longer than necessary.)

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_freight_in_Great_Britain#...

At least in the United States, this is incorrect. Long haul trucking is expensive compared to shipping things via the rails. The reason things end up being shipped via truck is that its faster, plain and simple. Shipping via rail car is slow and has no guaranteed arrival date. Or should I say, dependable arrival date. And from a logistics stand point you have to engage a last mile trucker at the rail head nearest your true destination to haul your item to the destination. Since you're unlikely to be shipping an entire container/rail car, you'll need to pay extra since the delivery driver will have to drive to your destination then 'dead head' (i.e. return without a load) to the rail yard.

These are just organizational problems that could be worked out if the financial incentives were there, instead of tilted heavily in favor of trucking.

Why aren't warehouses located at or near rail stations?

Because trucking is, or at least was, cheap.

Prior to the rise of the Interstate Highway system, most warehouses were on rail lines, or spurs. You'll still find the trackage, or at least the traces of them, in many urban areas throughout the U.S.

In San Francisco, the region near Potrero Hill by the old Fashion Design Centre. The odd street patterns and building perimeters show the former track rights of way.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/San+Francisco+Design+Cente...

You're arguing past parent. He stated not that trucking is cheaper, but that it is heavily subsidized. In almost all cases, rail would cheaper, and some things will take advantage of that. Likewise, in all situations trucking will be more expensive,yet there are use cases where the reliability and speed are justified (just like couriers are sometimes justified.) The difference made by the subsidies is all in shifting the margin.

Things that would be toss-ups or wins for rail are instead pushed to trucking. This would just be wasteful, and not so pernicious, were it not for the serious negative impacts on the layout of our towns that result from favoring trucks so heavily.

You also have cases like Portland where they shut down the shipping terminals which mean that all the things that would move by rail instead moves by truck now.

The amount of semi traffic from Portland to Seattle on I-5 has exploded, it certainly made driving that stretch a lot less enjoyable.

The current rail network already grows and shrinks with demand so long term you it can continue to expand without massive investments.

IMO, Automated trucking makes trains more not less useful. The core problem with using trains is speed plus how much time and effort loading and unloading takes. With automated trucks you can significantly reduce this friction.

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