I disagree. Specifically, you are assuming that the human workers will quietly accept their fate.

History is full of jobs that have been automated away, and few of those historical examples offered a more obvious and large payoff.

With railroads, there is not an economic incentive for automation.

One commentator suggested that driverless trucks would have to be separated from human drivers. Railroads have this thing called "tracks"

Another suggested the wonderful advantage of a driverless truck not getting into accidents. Railroads have an excellent safety record.

Driverless trucks as a way to reduce the need to spend money on humans. Railroads need only 2 humans for 100+ unit train that is equivalent to 300 or so trucks. ( 1 railcar = 3 truckloads https://www.chrobinson.com/en/us/Logistics/Intermodal-Rail/C... )

Trains are 10x more ( http://grist.org/article/freight-trains-19th-century-technol... ) more energy efficient than trucks.

What is the economic model to use driverless trucks? Sure the trucking industry will push for this. But the railroad industry has so many natural advantages.

The same as for trucks with drivers (only cheaper) and those already control much of the transportation business.

Road goes to more places than train tracks.

You dont really need more than that...

That's an interesting point. I wonder if self-driving trucks will tend to be smaller, because there's less incentive to amortize the wages of the driver by making his/her truck as large as possible.