In europe, the decline of cargo on tracks (trains) is also partially owed to subsidiation of automobile traffic and highway expansions. It is a pity, because from the raw numbers trains are much less expensive then tracks.
Of course a major reason for that is that the US have (literally) tons of commodities, a significant plurality of the tonnage is coal. I expect roughly the same of Russia, China, Australia and India (the other members of the tonnage top 5, Australia notably haults extremely heavy stuff for very short distances as it's about on par with the EU for tkm but waaay ahead in total tonnage).
Hell one of the reasons passenger trains is shit in the US is that passenger rail does not get priority over freight and thus you get the country's lone "high-speed train" giving way to slow freight leading to an average speed of 130km/h, slower than some non-high-speed intercity service in Europe.
The US has a smaller population than the EU (~300m to ~500m). So does Russia (150m). Australia has a significantly smaller population than the EU (15^H^H25m as golemiprague noted).
It's not population data it's mineral commodities.
> What would it look like for ton-mile per capita (if that's actually a statistic)?
The US would climb to ~15x the tonnes-kilometers per capita of the EU, and australia would shoot up to about the same ratio over the EU (owing to close tonne-kilometer but 1/20th the population). Russia would shoot up as well. Only China and India would get a lower rank overall, and not enough that the EU would come close to edging them for China at least (a bit under 3x the population, but a bit under 10x the tonner-kilometer of rail freight).
They do have priority:
> (c) Preference over freight transportation. -- Except in an emergency, intercity and commuter rail passenger transportation provided by or for Amtrak has preference over freight transportation in using a rail line, junction, or crossing...
http://codes.findlaw.com/us/title-49-transportation/49-usc-s...
My quick sampling of ~10 trains came up with an average around 65% on-time during the last year. The only one I've ridden, the California Zephyr, is less than 50%.
http://blog.amtrak.com/2015/02/message-amtrak-regarding-time...
http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/2017/03/24-judge-sides-...
http://www.jconline.com/story/money/2017/08/24/csx-digs-its-...
One hour I can understand, four is ridiculous. The trip is pleasant and the views are great but for me to take it again they're going to have to do better than 50% on-time.
Sure, you couldn’t run densely-packed passenger trains very well on such a system... but they’re not densely-packed. If they were, the system would have been a success and could then be turned off. ;)
In comparison, the US rail network is slow and low quality, which makes freight operations extremely attractive but is absolute garbage for passenger operations. US rail freight competes well in its market niche, where it is faster than oceanic shipping but much cheaper than air freight.
I am well aware that this is anecdotal. But from my point of view, not all rails are fast and well-maintained in Europe. Based on my personal experience, that statement applies to western Europe.
"Western Europe" is almost always what Americans are referring to when they say "Europe," for various biased reasons.
High Speed Rail is just a different style of construction, etc - but quality is subjective.
Often, the flexibility and reduced latency of freight by truck is worth the increased per-mile cost.
We might just find out the things we thought are worth it, are not really. It works the other way around, too, of course, which is that the increased per-mile cost is still way below what it would have to be with the externalities accounted for.
Then give a concrete quantification of that. It's a very complex question. Entire careers have been built on how to price something complex. That's called "economics."
Less inventory is worth it because space is money, especially on a retail shelf.
Your point was that trains are "self-driving cargo". If you'd left it at that, this would have been a clever comment.
Instead, you look like someone who doesn't realize the US has massive, massive, massive amounts of train-hauled cargo because all he knows is we don't use commuter trains as much as other countries.