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In these discussions there is always a lot of griping about the US’s poor rail infrastructure when the US actually has the 2nd most used rail networks in the wo

In these discussions there is always a lot of griping about the US’s poor rail infrastructure when the US actually has the 2nd most used rail networks in the world. It’s just almost entirely used for freight. An equally valid question is why does Europe transport almost all of its freight by truck? Obviously geography and population density - network effects scale with the square of population in reasonable service area - are huge factors. A multi-day freight trip is quite common while only a tiny fraction of passenger trips are more than a few hours - the reasonable service areas are vastly different. In Europe you have multiple overlapping country sized rail networks. While this gives the impression of a continental sized network (especially to Eurail pass riding in American tourists) very few people are taking trains journeys more than a few hours even in Europe. Another big issue is the incompatibility of freight and passenger rail services. It is very difficult to run both services on the same tracks at high service levels. The US focus on fright has hampered long distance and even regional passenger rail services. While in France the government decided to focus on passengers and eliminated all but a few freight routes. It would take an additional complete parallel rail infrastructure to do both well which would be quite expensive. So far the US and Europe haven’t thought this was worth it. China might be going this way. Perhaps this simply makes sense given the differing situations.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago
Out of curiosity: 2nd most used by what metric? Ton-miles? And who has the most-used?
Symbiote 8y ago
It's not a huge difference. By tonne-km, the EU uses rail for 17%, and the USA for 31%. So I accept that the USA uses the rail network almost entirely for freight, but it's not true that the EU transfers "almost all" freight by truck. Freight trains in Europe tend to run at much higher speeds than in the USA. For example, in Britain container trains can run at up to 75mph, and 140km/h in Germany. But compared to the USA, Europe already has a complete parallel infrastructure: pretty much every route has two tracks. I've only been on one long-distance passenger train in the USA, but there were long periods where there was only a single track. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Freight_transport_statistics_-_modal_split https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... https://www.bts.gov/content/us-ton-miles-freight https://www.bts.gov/content/us-ton-miles-freight https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/how-fast-are-freight-trains-in-the-uk.16067/ https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/how-fast-are-freight-tr...
- rootusrootus 8y ago
  That kind of statistic reminds me that Great Britain, for example, has 20% of the population of the United States, but almost 20% less land than the state of Oregon.
- spikels 8y ago
  By your own references the EU28 transports around 75% of its freight by truck while the US is around 40%. Seems like a huge difference to me. And EU28 stats are distorted by Northern and Eastern Europe where rail freight is big. Italy and France are over 80% truck and France and the UK are over 90%. Even Germany - famous for its freight rail network 150 years ago - transports only about 19% of freight by rail and 72% by truck. While I understand why US doesn’t have a national rail passenger network - the distances are simply too far between most population concentrations - it is somewhat of a mystery why so little freight travels by rail in Europe and so much by truck. Did the passenger rail network cannibalize the previously existing freight network? If passenger trains just replaced freight trains and trucks replaced cars, is this really the model to emulate?
  - Symbiote 8y ago
    >> Perhaps this simply makes sense given the differing situations. I think that's the only reasonable conclusion. There are so many differences: in economies, wealth distribution, consumer preference (e.g. for local produce), population density, landmass shape (international shipping isn't in the EU statistics, but is at least as significant as coastal shipping in the USA), infrastructure (EU has no problem building new pipelines), ... I can't find a good source of statistics, but it seems very possible that the USA simply transfers far more goods for more km (overland) than the EU. > Did the passenger rail network cannibalize the previously existing freight network? I'm aware of a shortage of rail capacity in particular places, e.g. traversing/avoiding London, but I don't think that's a general problem. More likely, the same types of journey on both continents moved to road (e.g. farmer to local market/distribution centre, factory to another factory in the same general area), but in the US long distance transport of imports from Asia increased.
aasasd 8y ago
I'm not sure if Russia's rail meets your criteria of proper service, but it has both passenger and freight transport in abundance, and I haven't heard of problems with that. Both long-distance and commuter passenger services are used extensively. However, freight service is mostly used for industrial materials while finished goods are mostly delivered by trucks (afaik), so that might be the difference.

AnimalMuppet 8y ago

Out of curiosity: 2nd most used by what metric? Ton-miles? And who has the most-used?

Symbiote 8y ago

It's not a huge difference. By tonne-km, the EU uses rail for 17%, and the USA for 31%. So I accept that the USA uses the rail network almost entirely for freight, but it's not true that the EU transfers "almost all" freight by truck. Freight trains in Europe tend to run at much higher speeds than in the USA. For example, in Britain container trains can run at up to 75mph, and 140km/h in Germany. But compared to the USA, Europe already has a complete parallel infrastructure: pretty much every route has two tracks. I've only been on one long-distance passenger train in the USA, but there were long periods where there was only a single track. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Freight_transport_statistics_-_modal_split https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... https://www.bts.gov/content/us-ton-miles-freight https://www.bts.gov/content/us-ton-miles-freight https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/how-fast-are-freight-trains-in-the-uk.16067/ https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/how-fast-are-freight-tr...

rootusrootus 8y ago
That kind of statistic reminds me that Great Britain, for example, has 20% of the population of the United States, but almost 20% less land than the state of Oregon.
spikels 8y ago
By your own references the EU28 transports around 75% of its freight by truck while the US is around 40%. Seems like a huge difference to me. And EU28 stats are distorted by Northern and Eastern Europe where rail freight is big. Italy and France are over 80% truck and France and the UK are over 90%. Even Germany - famous for its freight rail network 150 years ago - transports only about 19% of freight by rail and 72% by truck. While I understand why US doesn’t have a national rail passenger network - the distances are simply too far between most population concentrations - it is somewhat of a mystery why so little freight travels by rail in Europe and so much by truck. Did the passenger rail network cannibalize the previously existing freight network? If passenger trains just replaced freight trains and trucks replaced cars, is this really the model to emulate?
- Symbiote 8y ago
  >> Perhaps this simply makes sense given the differing situations. I think that's the only reasonable conclusion. There are so many differences: in economies, wealth distribution, consumer preference (e.g. for local produce), population density, landmass shape (international shipping isn't in the EU statistics, but is at least as significant as coastal shipping in the USA), infrastructure (EU has no problem building new pipelines), ... I can't find a good source of statistics, but it seems very possible that the USA simply transfers far more goods for more km (overland) than the EU. > Did the passenger rail network cannibalize the previously existing freight network? I'm aware of a shortage of rail capacity in particular places, e.g. traversing/avoiding London, but I don't think that's a general problem. More likely, the same types of journey on both continents moved to road (e.g. farmer to local market/distribution centre, factory to another factory in the same general area), but in the US long distance transport of imports from Asia increased.

aasasd 8y ago

I'm not sure if Russia's rail meets your criteria of proper service, but it has both passenger and freight transport in abundance, and I haven't heard of problems with that. Both long-distance and commuter passenger services are used extensively. However, freight service is mostly used for industrial materials while finished goods are mostly delivered by trucks (afaik), so that might be the difference.