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Rail [Edit: in the US] generally prioritizes slow freight, and has moved more in that direction over time. Precision scheduled railroading favors fewer, longer,

Rail [Edit: in the US] generally prioritizes slow freight, and has moved more in that direction over time. Precision scheduled railroading favors fewer, longer, slower trains to increase the ratio of freight to crew and maintenance costs. It is very well optimized and efficient, but you're not going to order something with standard UPS or Fedex style shipping and see it delivered by rail. Whereas in days past the railroad covered a significant amount of mail and parcel shipping due to higher service speeds and frequencies. I do wonder if there could be room for better logistics and an expansion of rail to cover faster (ie < 2 weeks) shipping scenarios, but this would require investing in the rail and signaling infrastructure and opening and infrastructure to competing service providers.

ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> It is very well optimized and efficient, but you're not going to order something with standard UPS or Fedex style shipping and see it delivered by rail My package from China has arrived by rail, it took about 3 whleeks, and Aliexpress tracking showed it going through kazahstan and Russia
- stetrain 3y ago
  Yes, I should have specified in the US. In places with shared passenger and freight traffic (ie a lot of Europe and Asia), freight services can't hyper-optimize on very long, very slow, infrequent service. This does result in usually less tonnage transported by rail, but service that is more flexible to faster shipping.
ghaff 3y ago
Expectations have changed too. FedEx was a pretty premium thing when it debuted. Now I'll order a new widget from Amazon because I'll get it as soon as I would have if I waited until I got around to driving to the Walmart 10 minutes away (and for the same price). For a lot of things, consumers are like "What do you mean I won't get it for 2+ weeks?" CANCEL.
- stetrain 3y ago
  I think there is something to be said about how we take "free 2-day shipping" for granted these days. Transporting something across the country should cost money compared to buying something already local to you, or even better made or grown near you. I haven't done the math myself, but I suspect we are all subsidizing interstate trucking (and perhaps air freight) compared to its actual infrastructure and emissions costs. This does lower prices of many essential goods, but also tilts things in favor of large corporations who can ship things cheaply all over the country (ie Walmart, Amazon).
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Although subsidies at a country level are... complicated. In general, I suspect that if most of us went back in time 25-30 years we'd be pretty shocked about just how much friction there was to everything. It's not a linear or absolute improvement--and some of the downsides are significant. (Cities you often wouldn't have wanted to live in back then are really expensive today.) But you also spent a lot of time and effort doing things that are essentially effortless today.
    - SoftTalker 3y ago
      You did, but at the time it was just how things worked and it didn't seem difficult or burdensome. Certain things or services were simpler, because it was impractical for them to be more complicated or customized.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    It's likely that one Amazon or UPS truck delivering 100 orders a day is better than 100 people driving to the store separately. It's hard to say though, because most people are driving to work or grocery shopping, etc. anyway and all they are really saving is one or two detours for things they don't need immediately, or wouldn't be buying at all if it weren't so convenient.
- yomlica8 3y ago
  I remember buying computer parts to build my own PC around 2000, mostly shipped from California to the east coast. The parts took 2-3 weeks to get here, which I believe was similar to most ebay shipments at the time. I didn't even think to complain back then, the selection and prices were so much better than local I just considered the 2-3 weeks the minor drawback that came with them.
tyrfing 3y ago
> It is very well optimized and efficient, but you're not going to order something with standard UPS or Fedex style shipping and see it delivered by rail. This isn't actually true, huge amounts of small parcel ground shipping goes by rail. You're correct that it's slower, but not by a huge amount. Costs grow enormously to shrink delivery times from around a week cross-country to only a few days, by far the best option is moving the fulfillment point closer to the destination. Amazon, Target, Walmart, Uline are some companies that do 1-2 day shipping cheaply almost anywhere by ground.

ClumsyPilot 3y ago

> It is very well optimized and efficient, but you're not going to order something with standard UPS or Fedex style shipping and see it delivered by rail My package from China has arrived by rail, it took about 3 whleeks, and Aliexpress tracking showed it going through kazahstan and Russia

stetrain 3y ago
Yes, I should have specified in the US. In places with shared passenger and freight traffic (ie a lot of Europe and Asia), freight services can't hyper-optimize on very long, very slow, infrequent service. This does result in usually less tonnage transported by rail, but service that is more flexible to faster shipping.

ghaff 3y ago

Expectations have changed too. FedEx was a pretty premium thing when it debuted. Now I'll order a new widget from Amazon because I'll get it as soon as I would have if I waited until I got around to driving to the Walmart 10 minutes away (and for the same price). For a lot of things, consumers are like "What do you mean I won't get it for 2+ weeks?" CANCEL.

stetrain 3y ago
I think there is something to be said about how we take "free 2-day shipping" for granted these days. Transporting something across the country should cost money compared to buying something already local to you, or even better made or grown near you. I haven't done the math myself, but I suspect we are all subsidizing interstate trucking (and perhaps air freight) compared to its actual infrastructure and emissions costs. This does lower prices of many essential goods, but also tilts things in favor of large corporations who can ship things cheaply all over the country (ie Walmart, Amazon).
- ghaff 3y ago
  Although subsidies at a country level are... complicated. In general, I suspect that if most of us went back in time 25-30 years we'd be pretty shocked about just how much friction there was to everything. It's not a linear or absolute improvement--and some of the downsides are significant. (Cities you often wouldn't have wanted to live in back then are really expensive today.) But you also spent a lot of time and effort doing things that are essentially effortless today.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    You did, but at the time it was just how things worked and it didn't seem difficult or burdensome. Certain things or services were simpler, because it was impractical for them to be more complicated or customized.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  It's likely that one Amazon or UPS truck delivering 100 orders a day is better than 100 people driving to the store separately. It's hard to say though, because most people are driving to work or grocery shopping, etc. anyway and all they are really saving is one or two detours for things they don't need immediately, or wouldn't be buying at all if it weren't so convenient.
yomlica8 3y ago
I remember buying computer parts to build my own PC around 2000, mostly shipped from California to the east coast. The parts took 2-3 weeks to get here, which I believe was similar to most ebay shipments at the time. I didn't even think to complain back then, the selection and prices were so much better than local I just considered the 2-3 weeks the minor drawback that came with them.

tyrfing 3y ago

> It is very well optimized and efficient, but you're not going to order something with standard UPS or Fedex style shipping and see it delivered by rail. This isn't actually true, huge amounts of small parcel ground shipping goes by rail. You're correct that it's slower, but not by a huge amount. Costs grow enormously to shrink delivery times from around a week cross-country to only a few days, by far the best option is moving the fulfillment point closer to the destination. Amazon, Target, Walmart, Uline are some companies that do 1-2 day shipping cheaply almost anywhere by ground.