I love this kind of stuff, now if Netflix want to make a documentary out of this, that would be amazing! We had this sort of operation in the UK before WW2 whe

I love this kind of stuff, now if Netflix want to make a documentary out of this, that would be amazing! We had this sort of operation in the UK before WW2 when there were separate companies running trains and even more so pre WW1 when there were 10s/100s of companies running everything from a single short line through to main lines up and down the country. It was, of course, very inefficient for the reasons that the OP discusses, the need to send a wagon anywhere from anywhere meant 1000s of "trip freights", although these would almost entirely have been made by trains. You also had stopping freight services that collected and set down at each station so you can imagine the shunting/marshalling was very time-intensive but, of course, in the early days, a day or 2 was still faster than most alternatives. What happened in the 70s in the UK with Speedlink was that they realised the best way to utilise capacity was to try and create fixed freights that travelled good distances at relatively high speeds between a small number of very large yards where it could be broken down into smaller ongoing services or go onto trucks. Of course, this only suited certain customers and would not work for a small business shipping a small volume but it worked well enough that it became the standard pattern by which all freights now run in the UK. I guess the issue in the US is that the distances are so long, you don't want lots of smaller specific trains but a few much larger trains with an enormous mix of destinations.