this post was submitted on 04 Mar 2024
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From what I've heard, the problem with rail freight is all the double-handling loading and unloading it - you still need trucks in the city to do the final deliveries
You should be able to counteract that with the fact a train can replace dozens or even hundreds of trucks (a quick google says up to 300, but I'm assuming that's an excessively long train), saving many driver hours.
I think (from my non-expert viewpoint) there's also a wider setup to make this more efficient. e.g. trucks carrying containers exist but aren't that common. Perhaps if you focused on a fleet of container carrying trucks where the containers also went on trains easily, you could make a really efficient process where you just have a crane loading truck after truck in 30 seconds each.
That's really only a problem because the long distance road freight is run under a massive government subsidy. Rail has to pay its own way; whereas road pays for a fraction of the damage it causes.
By which I mean yes you have to double-handle to get stuff on & off rail wagons. But that's unattractive because road transport is artificially cheap.