> For some reason, our railroad are privately owned rather than owned by the states or the fed
Who do you think built them? We have the world’s largest rail network for a reason.
Who do you think built them? We have the world’s largest rail network for a reason.
I don't know if shear size is a great way to evaluate what method of rail ownership is superior. The US is literally the third largest country on earth so it makes sense that we have a lot of "largests" when it comes to infrastructure networks.
What probably would make more sense would be a rail density metric instead. Something like km of rail per sq km of land would work (but has it's own flaws). But that metric then shows a number of other countries that clearly beat the US despite having nationalised or hybrid rail networks.
A good example would be Japan which has roughly triple as much rail relative to the size of their country and I doubt many people would argue that Japan's rail network is less effective than the US rail network.
If we want to talk freight utilisation, Japanese freight rail usage is low because of the country's geography/generally easy access to water/maritime shipping (since shipping by water is always more cost/energy effective per tonne relative to rail).
So a comparable example in that case would be China who has similar geography, a similar sized country, and a rail network roughly 70% the size of the US rail network (#2 largest network). However China moves nearly 3x more raw mass per year relative to the US and 50% more tonne kilometers per year relative to the US.
Point being that US freight rail is massive because it geographically and economically makes sense for it to be so. Similar networks exist in other countries that take nationalised or hybrid rail approaches yet those countries consistently outperform US rail in basically every metric but shear size.
Is that true? I always thought it was the other way around. Rail has relatively low rolling resistance so I thought it would take a lot less energy to move the same weight by rail compared to water.
Which one is easier to move?
At the same time, swimming speed isn’t very useful for anybody. What are the relative energy requirements to move ten thousand pounds at 30 mph in the water vs on rails?
> | transport mode | Fuel consumption |
> | ---------------------- | BTU per short ton-mile | kJ per tonne-kilometre |
> | Domestic waterborne | 217 | 160 |
> | Class 1 railroads | 289 | 209 |
> | Heavy trucks | 3,357 | 2,426 |
> | Air freight (approx.) | 9,600 | 6,900 |
In other words waterborne freight is generally around 25% cheaper energy wise and far easier/cheaper to scale capacity relative to rail.
It's also worth looking at some of the other numbers on that page. German numbers work out ocean freight to be over 3x cheaper energywise per tkm relative to rail.
> Per one gallon of fuel:
> A truck can carry one ton of cargo just 59 miles.
> By rail, one ton of cargo can travel 202 miles.
> An inland barge can carry one ton of cargo 514 miles.
https://www.portoflittlerock.com/2023/10/the-benefits-of-riv...
> The study shows that barges can move a ton of cargo 647 miles with a single gallon of fuel, an increase from an earlier estimate of 616 miles. In contrast, trains can move the same ton of cargo 477 miles per gallon, and trucks can move the same ton of cargo 145 miles per gallon.
> https://maritime-executive.com/article/barge-transport-wins-....
Notice that we managed to build an interstate system and lot of other infrastructure.
You’re right though that it’s not exactly about it being centralized.
The yellow book (designed by the federal govt) maps extremely closely to what became the final interstate system.
The states did the actual building and own the actual land but the federal govt told them where to build, gave them the money, and otherwise forced their hand into the construction.
I'm not necessarily saying federal control over all infrastructure is a good thing but it really was in large part due to the federal government that the interstate system actually happened.
Slaves?
Exploitation and cheating sure, but the railroads are recent.
The slaves were also recent.
>Southern railroad companies began buying slaves as early as the 1840s and used enslaved labor almost exclusively to construction their lines. Thousands of African Americans worked on the southern railroads in the 1850s
There is a temporal overlap between "slave america" and "railroad america".
This type of subtle historical revisionism is used to distance ourselves from the horrors of slavery. I don't think it was a conscious effort on your part, though. Don't take this as an attack, please. It's just a gentle reminder that slavery isn't actually all that ancient of a practice.
https://www.google.com/maps/@43.7155994,-122.829874,73748m/d...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_and_California_Railroad...
China:
Total length: 155,000 km (100,000 km electrified)
Total passenger/km: (1,470.66 billion passenger-kilometres, 2019)
Total freight: 3,018 billion cargo tonne-kilometres (2019)
US:
Total length: 257,722 km (160,141 mi) (I can't find figures on electrified length, seems at most 2000km?)
Total passenger/km: (10.3 billion, 2014)
Total freight: 1.71 trillion short ton-mile, approx 963 billion tonne-kilometres (I used wolfram alpha for that conversion)
So if my calculations are correct - which they may not be - on fewer rails China transports an order of magnitude more passenger and freight traffic.
But the premise is meaningless. It's easy for a government to affect the usage of something by subsidizing it or constraining alternatives to it, which has little to do with whether it would be more efficient or well-managed as a public agency.
That's a pretty huge difference in terms of modal share.
And even with the sprawling size of the US network (and differences in things like labor costs), US freight rail is still more efficient at moving cargo in terms of costs.
Now do comparison of transporting people and that’s impact on the economy