This paper seems to give an interesting perspective: http://intermodal.transportation.org/Documents/brown.pdf http://intermodal.transportation.org/Documents/bro

This paper seems to give an interesting perspective: http://intermodal.transportation.org/Documents/brown.pdf http://intermodal.transportation.org/Documents/brown.pdf It comes down to highway transportation being massively subsidized in the US, to the detriment of rail. So rail is cheaper but much higher latency than trucking, with the potential for long and unpredictable delays.