Rail is the most energy-efficient method of hauling freight over land (where no water route is available), and electric trains are powered, on average, by whatever powers the regional grid. For countries besides France, such as the USA, Germany, or Norway, which get a sizeable portion of their energy from carbon-free sources, electric rail is a reasonably low carbon compared to trucking, and perhaps even compared to barge.
Freight rail would require immense batteries.
I thought HN was more thought through than this kind of glib comment.
How about people needed per ton for example? A train conductor can be far more efficient than a pilot on that metric.