Re:Four ways to speed up trains on the New Silk Road (2020)
by bruiseralmighty on Tuesday April 06, 2021 @03:54PM
(#26716603)
You are correct, I didn't address the basis for the cost difference until later in my comment. Trucks are more expensive due to the number of drivers needed per freight rather than the cost of a roads vs rails.
>Trucks can go anywhere over land, but are quite a step up in expense. They are still necessary for something last 10 miles shipping in nearly all cases.
Trains and trucks can effectively go to the same places for what it's worth. The infrastructure is roughly the same cost. For fairly standard rail it is $1-2 million per mile, road is $1-5 million per mile for a typical two lane road.
You don't need a rail station either, businesses can just use forklifts, pallet jacks, cranes, etc to unload rail cars in a very similar way to how trucks are unloaded.
Around here in the midwest if you look at google maps you can see that a lot of older businesses had or have rail going to them, but since trucks got massive subsidies over the last 60-70 years trains haven't seen as much use in this way.