4 ms·

That would be a curious comparison point. I feel like every discussion of rail in the US always turns into pointing and laughing at how bad the US is at rail be

That would be a curious comparison point. I feel like every discussion of rail in the US always turns into pointing and laughing at how bad the US is at rail because it's viewed through a passenger lens, completely ignoring how much rail is used for freight. My impression is that a lot of the rest of the world has much better passenger rail, but uses freight rail quite a bit less. I wonder if part of it is due to the inverse reason to the US. Amtrak often complains that it gets sidelined (literally) because of freight usage of the same track. Is freight rail usage in, say, Germany, lower than the US because of the dominance of passenger rail?

ascar 3y ago
I assume it would be less about the dominance of passanger displacing freight and more about scale/distance. Germany is smaller than Texas (half the area). How often is it economical to put stuff on trains before loading them on trucks again for distances sub 1000km?
- Symbiote 3y ago
  It's that, but there are also many lorries driving over several countries in Europe. Europe does have more favourable rivers, so some bulk goods (grain, coal, fuel, chemicals) are transported by barge. Other freight can go by sea.
- noirbot 3y ago
  Oh sure, but the "haha the US isn't even a third world country with its train system" people already are ignoring scale/density when they're laughing at the US rail systems. I'm past even bothering dealing with that bad faith take. My curiosity is if the US has just traded off having better passenger rail for better freight rail, and if that's maybe a somewhat environmentally justified choice. How much more freight is going by truck in Europe because of the bias towards rail for passengers, and how does that compare to US people traveling by car when train would be better?
  - mparkms 3y ago
    Looks like 73% of freight is moved by truck in the US vs 77% in the EU. Not a big enough difference to really matter I think. https://www.trucking.org/economics-and-industry-data https://www.trucking.org/economics-and-industry-data https://www.statista.com/statistics/1068592/eu-road-freight-share-of-inland-transport/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1068592/eu-road-freight-...
    - jcranmer 3y ago
      The usual metric is ton-kilometers of freight, not gross tonnage. Going by gross tonnage alone overweights the impact of last-kilometer freight, which is almost always by road. Measured by ton-kilometers, the EU moves about 5% of freight by rail, whereas the US moves about 28% of freight by rail.
    - reactordev 3y ago
      Intermodal (hauling shipping containers for trucks to take last-kilometer) is by far America’s biggest freight type. Something like 80% or more of consumer goods go through intermodal or road on their way to distribution centers that load it onto trucks that deliver it to the store (or your home). For rail alone it looks like 50/50. 50% is resources and dry goods, oil and gas, and the rest is consumer goods, boxcar, flatcar, intermodal. [1] [1] https://www.aar.org/topic/industries-we-support/# https://www.aar.org/topic/industries-we-support/#!
  - Gare 3y ago
    > How much more freight is going by truck in Europe because of the bias towards rail for passengers, and how does that compare to US people traveling by car when train would be better? Europe moved lots of freight by rail. But building of motorways shifted a lot of freight to roads. If your company moves just a few trucks of goods per week across Europe, road will be faster and cheaper. Rail is now used mostly for bulk goods, but increasing conterisation is enabling easier use of rail even for smaller shipments (less than a full train length, which in Europe is max 700 m).
  - hnaccount_rng 3y ago
- jantissler 3y ago
  That argument would only be valid if Germany was an island, though. But it's not. Lots of traffic coming through from all directions.
  - noirbot 3y ago
    Sure, but the size scales out. Texas isn't an island either.
    - reactordev 3y ago
      Americans passed on passenger rail due to more modern inventions like the automobile. Being able to “drive yourself” was the ultimate freedom. Trucking (and the interstate highway system) post WWII made it so trucks can get to every major city without hassle. This was because of the rail system being clogged up and some railroads failing (merger). People are starting to come back around to passenger rail service as more younger adults forgo the traditional driving right of passage. Sun rail in Florida for example. Metro subways. Etc. For longer distances, we have Frontier Airlines which is like the Greyhound Bus of the sky. Tickets are dirt cheap and you get what you pay for. Americans also designed their cities to be driven and not walked so we kinda went all in on “Ford” early.
jantissler 3y ago
It is actually a problem in Germany that high-speed trains too often share tracks with slower passenger and freight trains. Other countries like Japan put their high-speed trains on completely separate tracks.
- Ichthypresbyter 3y ago
  I think Japan only does that for weird legacy reasons- freight and slower passenger trains run on 1067 mm gauge tracks, while the Shinkansen network is standard (1435 mm) gauge.
  - shiroiuma 3y ago
    I don't think so. There's simply too much traffic on the shinkansen lines to be able to mix slower and/or freight trains on the same lines. On the Tokaido line between Tokyo and Osaka, trains run every 7 minutes (IIRC); you can't have a freight train sharing a track with a bullet train service that has trains that close together.
  - gpvos 3y ago
    No, France does the same thing, it has much more high speed track than Germany, even though TGVs ride on classical track as well in the periphery.
- achileas 3y ago
  This is also a problem with IIRC the Acela and other Amtrak routes between Boston and New York, and probably on other routes too.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    Amtrak owns most (all?) of the NEC track between New York and Boston. Most other routes are freight train owned and Amtrak has issues. Though the freights claim the issue is Amtrak is late for their assigned times and once that happens they lose priority, if Amtrak was on time they claim that they would let Amtrak through on time. (one fright that doesn't let Amtrak through on time will cascade to being late for all transfers, so the freights can overall be right and still wrong just because of the one exception) I don't know how to evaluate this claim.

ascar 3y ago

I assume it would be less about the dominance of passanger displacing freight and more about scale/distance. Germany is smaller than Texas (half the area). How often is it economical to put stuff on trains before loading them on trucks again for distances sub 1000km?

Symbiote 3y ago
It's that, but there are also many lorries driving over several countries in Europe. Europe does have more favourable rivers, so some bulk goods (grain, coal, fuel, chemicals) are transported by barge. Other freight can go by sea.
noirbot 3y ago
Oh sure, but the "haha the US isn't even a third world country with its train system" people already are ignoring scale/density when they're laughing at the US rail systems. I'm past even bothering dealing with that bad faith take. My curiosity is if the US has just traded off having better passenger rail for better freight rail, and if that's maybe a somewhat environmentally justified choice. How much more freight is going by truck in Europe because of the bias towards rail for passengers, and how does that compare to US people traveling by car when train would be better?
- mparkms 3y ago
  Looks like 73% of freight is moved by truck in the US vs 77% in the EU. Not a big enough difference to really matter I think. https://www.trucking.org/economics-and-industry-data https://www.trucking.org/economics-and-industry-data https://www.statista.com/statistics/1068592/eu-road-freight-share-of-inland-transport/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1068592/eu-road-freight-...
  - jcranmer 3y ago
    The usual metric is ton-kilometers of freight, not gross tonnage. Going by gross tonnage alone overweights the impact of last-kilometer freight, which is almost always by road. Measured by ton-kilometers, the EU moves about 5% of freight by rail, whereas the US moves about 28% of freight by rail.
  - reactordev 3y ago
    Intermodal (hauling shipping containers for trucks to take last-kilometer) is by far America’s biggest freight type. Something like 80% or more of consumer goods go through intermodal or road on their way to distribution centers that load it onto trucks that deliver it to the store (or your home). For rail alone it looks like 50/50. 50% is resources and dry goods, oil and gas, and the rest is consumer goods, boxcar, flatcar, intermodal. [1] [1] https://www.aar.org/topic/industries-we-support/# https://www.aar.org/topic/industries-we-support/#!
- Gare 3y ago
  > How much more freight is going by truck in Europe because of the bias towards rail for passengers, and how does that compare to US people traveling by car when train would be better? Europe moved lots of freight by rail. But building of motorways shifted a lot of freight to roads. If your company moves just a few trucks of goods per week across Europe, road will be faster and cheaper. Rail is now used mostly for bulk goods, but increasing conterisation is enabling easier use of rail even for smaller shipments (less than a full train length, which in Europe is max 700 m).
- hnaccount_rng 3y ago
jantissler 3y ago
That argument would only be valid if Germany was an island, though. But it's not. Lots of traffic coming through from all directions.
- noirbot 3y ago
  Sure, but the size scales out. Texas isn't an island either.
  - reactordev 3y ago
    Americans passed on passenger rail due to more modern inventions like the automobile. Being able to “drive yourself” was the ultimate freedom. Trucking (and the interstate highway system) post WWII made it so trucks can get to every major city without hassle. This was because of the rail system being clogged up and some railroads failing (merger). People are starting to come back around to passenger rail service as more younger adults forgo the traditional driving right of passage. Sun rail in Florida for example. Metro subways. Etc. For longer distances, we have Frontier Airlines which is like the Greyhound Bus of the sky. Tickets are dirt cheap and you get what you pay for. Americans also designed their cities to be driven and not walked so we kinda went all in on “Ford” early.

jantissler 3y ago

It is actually a problem in Germany that high-speed trains too often share tracks with slower passenger and freight trains. Other countries like Japan put their high-speed trains on completely separate tracks.

Ichthypresbyter 3y ago
I think Japan only does that for weird legacy reasons- freight and slower passenger trains run on 1067 mm gauge tracks, while the Shinkansen network is standard (1435 mm) gauge.
- shiroiuma 3y ago
  I don't think so. There's simply too much traffic on the shinkansen lines to be able to mix slower and/or freight trains on the same lines. On the Tokaido line between Tokyo and Osaka, trains run every 7 minutes (IIRC); you can't have a freight train sharing a track with a bullet train service that has trains that close together.
- gpvos 3y ago
  No, France does the same thing, it has much more high speed track than Germany, even though TGVs ride on classical track as well in the periphery.
achileas 3y ago
This is also a problem with IIRC the Acela and other Amtrak routes between Boston and New York, and probably on other routes too.
- bluGill 3y ago
  Amtrak owns most (all?) of the NEC track between New York and Boston. Most other routes are freight train owned and Amtrak has issues. Though the freights claim the issue is Amtrak is late for their assigned times and once that happens they lose priority, if Amtrak was on time they claim that they would let Amtrak through on time. (one fright that doesn't let Amtrak through on time will cascade to being late for all transfers, so the freights can overall be right and still wrong just because of the one exception) I don't know how to evaluate this claim.