this post was submitted on 02 May 2025
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Rail is used in the US. We just don't have as much rail infustructure so they can only get so far. If the port/factory/wearhouse aren't connect by rail then they'll have to use trucks for at least part of the transit.
Probably could have built a lot of rail for the cost of R&D on self-driving semis...
I'm not so sure. Infrastructure is hella expensive and the US government already maintains the highways that make trucking make sense.
Not necessarily. A 40 tonne lorry damages the motorway as much as ~~1000~~ 160'000 passenger cars. It will lead to the state having to renew the road surfaces every few years. Rails don't have that problem, they'll happily take 100 tonnes for decades.
The point I'm making is that the government has already decided to maintain the highways, so continuing on is the status quo. If they wanted to make new railroads they'd have to expend political capital to get anything new funded.
According to an old and well-attested empirical formula, road damage is proportional to the fourth power of vehicle weight. So if we make the pessimistic assumption that those passenger cars weigh 2 tons (pretend they're all SUV-sized EVs), then the damage ratio is on the order of (40^4) / (2^4), which means your 40-ton lorry does as much damage as 160,000 cars.
Thank you for the correction! I remembered incorrectly.
Maybe 2 or 3 single rail lines across the country.
You guys gotta remember that the US is double the size of the entire EU. I will say that I don't disagree in that more rail would be nice, but you have to think about this logically.
Oh I do, it's where I live. At current costs its about $1.6m(1) per mile, so yea, agreed, probably not much. Will have to check back in 5 years after we see the costs to operate and lawsuits from accidents 😆
how about historically? we had rail, and it was great. Most of it was ripped up at the behest of auto manufacturers.
It was mostly the street car systems that got ripped up, not the stuff that carries freight.
trams were the biggest casualty, but not the only.
Tram! That's the word I was looking for...