Trains, trucks, and supply chains

> For example, a 2015 study conducted by the Congressional Budget Office, found that moving cargo via rail costs about 5.1 cents per ton-mile, whereas the cost via truck is 15.6 cents per ton-mile, and this because a truck can handle 1 – 2 containers per trip, whereas a train can handle a few hundred.

My math skills are lacking but they seem to be saying that it would cost $3.43/mile for a fully loaded truck (approximately 22 tons freight capacity) at 15.6 cents per ton-mile. It’s actually almost 46k lbs if they load it absolutely perfectly (because the axle groups have weight limits) but nobody does that except the stupid carrot peeps who will make you go back because they can throw an extra couple hundred pounds on. Oh, and Budweiser usually loads to capacity too. Need to know these things so you don’t show up with empty fuel tanks and end up overweight after fueling because they don’t care.

They had me take a class at work (free lunch? Sign me up!) where we calculated what it costs to operate a truck (my truck specifically) and it came out to around $1.43/mile not counting my wages. This is from actual data of me running around hauling freight not some congressional staffers pulling numbers out of their assets.

On the railroad strike, I heard from the first threats that they stopped putting perishable products on the trains because they didn’t want them to get stuck at some random location if they all walked off the job. All that stuff got diverted to trucks, make your own decision on that I suppose.

So I'm a pretty classical libertarian and overall don't love unions and really hate government intervention in pretty much anything especially the economy.

But here's the thing is that a society that stops caring for the poor, that exploits it's people, or in the words of the Bible that has "afalse swearers, and against those that oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and that turn aside the stranger from his right," is going to be headed for rough times and is morally bankrupt.

It feels to me like we are seeing more and more of that lately with things like passing laws to prevent the workers from striking, the massive wealth transfer that occurred during COVID, the way corporations are becoming land lords optimizing for profit. It just all seems to me like we are headed down a dark road where our only god is money and the only sin is not extracting the maximum profit.

> Second, why does the Senate have the ability to force the Union to accept a resolution? This is clearly not the case in other industries.

It isn't? I think it is.