"American railroads move more than 5,000 ton-miles of freight per person per year. That’s compared to 500 ton-miles per person in Europe and less than 170 ton-m

"American railroads move more than 5,000 ton-miles of freight per person per year. That’s compared to 500 ton-miles per person in Europe and less than 170 ton-miles per person in Japan." (just a neat snippet on just how important freight rail is to the US - obviously due to the enormous size of the US, but plays into your comment on amount of track too. A lot of it is just vast distances connecting empty stuff. Still not convenient for running multiple services) As for shipping, yeah, you can definitely take the canal, but it will still take longer to ship from china to east coast than to unload in los angeles and ship it across the country. And ofc requires a freighter small enough to navigate the canal. A lot of freight does get unloaded on the west coast then shipped across the country. At that point while the ship would be more efficient energy-wise, there just isn't the capacity and speeds needed, so the comparison is still truck versus train.