Unpowered cargo gliders on tow ropes promise 65% cheaper air freight

Air freight is phenomenally inefficient compared to rail.

How much air freight really needs to be transferred by air, though?

Air freight makes sense when you need to get something across an ocean in less than a month, or across the continent in less than a day. If the US were to invest in running the railroads efficiently, getting a package from NYC to LA in less than 72 hours should be possible - that's fast enough for regular Amazon shipping. If you electrify the railroads you could avoid an awful lot of CO2 emissions.

There are currently already container trains running from China to Europe (or at least there used to, before Russia started a war). It's a viable midpoint between ocean freight and air freight.

This is a myth oft-repeated on HN. US freight rail does cheaply transport a lot of tonnage, but it is a shadow of its former self, after a half-century of digesting the investments of the past. It's squeezed out efficiency by running longer and slower trains (that exceed the length of the rail sidings!) transporting bulk goods on predictable schedules between fixed points (like grain and coal), while slashing routes and reducing maintenance. It ships a lot of freight, but it does not do so effectively, quickly, nor safely, or flexibly.

This is true, and I've made the point myself previously on HN.

But US freight tonnage is dominated by cheap bulk goods, most notoriously coal, though grain and bulk liquids (petroleum, industrial).[0]

There's also a lot of intermodal / containerised freight, but this is almost exclusively long-haul "land bridge" traffic, with very little trade or viability for short-haul freight (< 500 mi) or less-than-truckload (LTL) carriage.[1]

Cross-country carriage still takes 10--14 days, despite the fact that a through-routed train travelling at 79 MPH (peak speed on most freight lines) could in theory make the distance in about a day and a half. For time-sensitive goods, including much fresh produce, this means that truck or air freight is the only viable option.

I've gone digging for any recently published research on new innovations in traditional freight technologies and ... there simply isn't any to speak of.[2] Much of the underlying infrastructure is literally a century or more old. The last major powerplant revolution was the introduction of the diesel-electric locomotive which will have its centennial next year.[3]

Given the present obsession with electrified lorry projects, it seems to me to make far more sense to look at optimising rail-based delivery to provide for far more flexible routing, dynamic trainset assembly and disassembly, higher-speed fright,[4] integration of light freight (e.g., document and high-value product delivery) with high-speed rail systems,[5] or rail-trolly systems, in which local delivery occurs via either autonomous or small-trainset convoys which decouple from a through system and reach endpoints or local distribution centres at lower speeds on local rail or dedicated roadbed routes. Similar discussion from about a year ago here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32967216>

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Notes:

0. Some 10 year old values by modality here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6858737>

1. Yes, there's some of each, but in general, lorry-based over-the-road haulage dominates both markets.

2. Raised two years ago here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32611937>

3. <https://www.borail.org/collection/cnj-no-1000/>

4. At 120 mph, cross-country transit drops to just over a day, at 25 hours. At 160 mph, 18 hours, for same-day delivery as an option.

5. At 180 mph, typical of many high-speed rail systems, delivery time from San Francisco to Los Angeles is about 2h 15m, and routes such as NYC or Denver to Chicago, Dallas to Atlanta, or Miami to Washington, D.C., or Norfolk, VA, to Boston 5--8 hours.

What would that be?

Not doubting you, just can't think of collateral damage.

This is roughly equivalent to flying if the car is ICE

I don't know who you've talked to about this, but just because it's electric and robo-driven doesn't mean they get to skip aerodynamic drag. Air resistance increases at the square of velocity. 4 miles/kWh at 55 becomes < 2 mi/kWh at 85. 100 mph and you're measuring in kWh/mile.

That sounds lovely. Of course, you'll never achieve that with automobiles, so we'll be needing the trains to make it possible. No tires and significantly less chances of a collision that will kill you.

If you go to their website you'll see several members of their senior leadership have railroad experience.

https://aerolane.com/company/

Who said anything about bulldozing neighborhoods? Why would you wish that on someone else?

Right, but if a plane has a maximum takeoff weight of 600k lb, I doubt if it can safely takeoff while being 600k lb AND towing another x00k lb in a glider, which is what would be required to reduce cargo costs by 65%.

You probably wouldn't go totally fuel free - you'd go mostly fuel free.

And yes, the craft would have to be absolutely huge for a decent payload - and it might make sense to use different construction techniques considering that - for example an inflatable fully pressurised craft.