In the US, containers have won out. The other schemes - roadrailers, Trailer On Flat Car/piggyback, and some other strange approaches - have pretty much become obsolete. Double-stack container trains have maybe 4x the capacity of hauling an entire truck.
Eurotunnel's system is very nice, but only works for a short journey: they don't provide space on those trains for passengers to relax, you stay in or near your car. This is perfect for 30 minutes, also makes faster loading/unloading, but can't work for longer journeys. Also because of this "stay near your car" thing, their trains are wider than usual trains in Europe, which makes it impossible for them to go anywhere except on that dedicated tunnel.
I'd love to see a solution that actually works almost like them but for longer trips: there is zero fun driving 1000km by the road when you need to go somewhere. It could be fun if you have time, but otherwise it's boring and tiring, would much prefer driving at the destination than on the journey.
The lorry drivers do have a separate cabin that they travel in. The cars are in completely enclosed double-decker carriages, but the lorries are open to the elements.
Have they won out or has freight shifted to trucking from rail? Heavy, slow, and double stacked is the most efficient, but shippers look at more than a single factor.
If it came in on a container ship, and has a long way to go, the next step is often rail. This has led to "inland ports", in such places as Tucson, AZ and Columbus, OH, where the containers leave rail and go on trucks. In the US, it's not exactly "last mile" from there, more like last hundred miles.
Union Pacific's container trains are heavy, fast, and double-stacked. Once they get clear of the congested area around LA, they pick up speed.[1]
I never imagined for a second that these things were going slow for our benefit (maybe safety, noise etc). I just had in my mind that they were simply incapable (technical reasons such as track or economic reasons like fuel efficiency) of going any faster.
So they could be speeding through the rail crossing instead of crawling at what feels like five miles an hour?
autonomous trucks may strike back. Especially when they would connect bumper to bumper into "truck trains" (fuel saving and increased bandwidth of a given highway)
This article is focused on the freight aspect, but Amtrak operates a passenger Auto Train too. Danny Harmon has a great video about the unloading process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYlWBWlS4t0
I once ran into a website about some french industrialist who made a hundred drawings of roads and rail mixed with vehicles that looked like they belonged in some epic cartoon. Im sure his version would be a very long passenger or cargo train (probably both) with the roof exactly the height of the road. Trucks would drive onto the roof and park all the way to the front. Then the train would dive deep into the grounds because gravity is free.
Now, if only truck drivers could remember switching off their truck's alarm system after rolling on one of these trains... every time they pass through here, at least one of the trucks has their alarm system going off at full blast.
Makes you wonder if there are 8+ axle road trailers for rail cars. Wouldn't that be some transception to place a trailer on a rail car on a trailer? ;D
Before reading the article I was thinking/hoping this would be the kind of "rolling highway" described by Heinlein in "The Roads Must Roll"; think cross-country conveyor belts.
This can really take off once self-driving matures. The _main_ problem with freight train is not their speed or the rail track throughput, but the time it takes to sort the train cars ("dwell time"). It's so bad, that the average car "speed" can be around 10 km/h. Or even slower.
And the railroads do not particularly care about optimizing their network, they are content to milk the bulk hauls for as much profit as they can. My friend worked at a startup that tried to pitch fully automated couplers to rail companies. They didn't care, even though it could have cut the dwell time significantly.
But if the improvements can be made on the _cargo_ side, then it's a different story.
I find that hard to believe, anything that could reduce time in transit and switching yard labor would be attractive. The process of assembling a train is far more automated today than it was in the past, so evidence does not support that they are content to just "milk" their current business.
> The process of assembling a train is far more automated today than it was in the past, so evidence does not support that they are content to just "milk" their current business.
Not really. If you take a railroad worker from the 1980-s, they would be able to work, with only minor training.
The dwell time actually _increased_. Rail companies are focusing on hauling bulk goods (coal, construction materials, oil, etc.) rather than trying to compete with trucks for fast delivery.
It's far easier to optimize for throughput than latency, after all. And rail companies are local monopolies, so they're doing whatever brings more money next quarter.
how much space we could save on highways if we have electric self driving trucks doing mile long convoys - self driving trucks can have short "safe distance" between them.
radars can be dual use - as radar and as communication device. 60ghz wifi has 10gbps speeds, line of sight only, so excellent for connecting columns of trucks.
And then you still have each truck with an individual ICE, how is that better than an electric locomotive? (Yes I know, the rail network isn't nearly as electrised as much of Europe)
Still, I love seeing the swap bodies rolling up the passes in Austria.
So there are ones besides Eurotunnel.
In the US, containers have won out. The other schemes - roadrailers, Trailer On Flat Car/piggyback, and some other strange approaches - have pretty much become obsolete. Double-stack container trains have maybe 4x the capacity of hauling an entire truck.
Eurotunnel's system is very nice, but only works for a short journey: they don't provide space on those trains for passengers to relax, you stay in or near your car. This is perfect for 30 minutes, also makes faster loading/unloading, but can't work for longer journeys. Also because of this "stay near your car" thing, their trains are wider than usual trains in Europe, which makes it impossible for them to go anywhere except on that dedicated tunnel.
I'd love to see a solution that actually works almost like them but for longer trips: there is zero fun driving 1000km by the road when you need to go somewhere. It could be fun if you have time, but otherwise it's boring and tiring, would much prefer driving at the destination than on the journey.
The lorry drivers do have a separate cabin that they travel in. The cars are in completely enclosed double-decker carriages, but the lorries are open to the elements.
One such "strange approach" was the Roadrailer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadrailer
Have they won out or has freight shifted to trucking from rail? Heavy, slow, and double stacked is the most efficient, but shippers look at more than a single factor.
If it came in on a container ship, and has a long way to go, the next step is often rail. This has led to "inland ports", in such places as Tucson, AZ and Columbus, OH, where the containers leave rail and go on trucks. In the US, it's not exactly "last mile" from there, more like last hundred miles.
Union Pacific's container trains are heavy, fast, and double-stacked. Once they get clear of the congested area around LA, they pick up speed.[1]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHXhR8dhths
> container trains are [...] fast
I never imagined for a second that these things were going slow for our benefit (maybe safety, noise etc). I just had in my mind that they were simply incapable (technical reasons such as track or economic reasons like fuel efficiency) of going any faster.
So they could be speeding through the rail crossing instead of crawling at what feels like five miles an hour?
Truck is about 30% more than rail, but they both move an awful lot of stuff: https://www.bts.gov/content/us-ton-miles-freight
autonomous trucks may strike back. Especially when they would connect bumper to bumper into "truck trains" (fuel saving and increased bandwidth of a given highway)
This article is focused on the freight aspect, but Amtrak operates a passenger Auto Train too. Danny Harmon has a great video about the unloading process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYlWBWlS4t0
This is quite common in Switzerland. You can stay in your car for some of them, which is a pretty funny experience.
Very few routes (maybe only one) offer this, however.
It's quite common for tunnels. Like the Eurotunnel or the Simplon tunnel.
I once ran into a website about some french industrialist who made a hundred drawings of roads and rail mixed with vehicles that looked like they belonged in some epic cartoon. Im sure his version would be a very long passenger or cargo train (probably both) with the roof exactly the height of the road. Trucks would drive onto the roof and park all the way to the front. Then the train would dive deep into the grounds because gravity is free.
THE ROADS MUST ROLL, by Robert A. Heinlein, 1940
https://ia601208.us.archive.org/32/items/calibre_library_178...
Now, if only truck drivers could remember switching off their truck's alarm system after rolling on one of these trains... every time they pass through here, at least one of the trucks has their alarm system going off at full blast.
Makes you wonder if there are 8+ axle road trailers for rail cars. Wouldn't that be some transception to place a trailer on a rail car on a trailer? ;D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEWvw2JE3A4
If you can put a locomotive on a truck, you can put anything.
Before reading the article I was thinking/hoping this would be the kind of "rolling highway" described by Heinlein in "The Roads Must Roll"; think cross-country conveyor belts.
Same for me, tho I thought of the flowing roads from Clarke's "the city and the stars"
Completing the triumvirate, Asimov had them on Earth in the Robot novels
This can really take off once self-driving matures. The _main_ problem with freight train is not their speed or the rail track throughput, but the time it takes to sort the train cars ("dwell time"). It's so bad, that the average car "speed" can be around 10 km/h. Or even slower.
And the railroads do not particularly care about optimizing their network, they are content to milk the bulk hauls for as much profit as they can. My friend worked at a startup that tried to pitch fully automated couplers to rail companies. They didn't care, even though it could have cut the dwell time significantly.
But if the improvements can be made on the _cargo_ side, then it's a different story.
Self driving is much less important for the sorting process than new couplings (i.e. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_automatic_coupling)
Yep. That startup tried to do something similar, except in a backwards-compatible way, and for American railroad standards.
In 2005. Train companies didn't care.
> They didn't care
I find that hard to believe, anything that could reduce time in transit and switching yard labor would be attractive. The process of assembling a train is far more automated today than it was in the past, so evidence does not support that they are content to just "milk" their current business.
> The process of assembling a train is far more automated today than it was in the past, so evidence does not support that they are content to just "milk" their current business.
Not really. If you take a railroad worker from the 1980-s, they would be able to work, with only minor training.
The dwell time actually _increased_. Rail companies are focusing on hauling bulk goods (coal, construction materials, oil, etc.) rather than trying to compete with trucks for fast delivery.
It's far easier to optimize for throughput than latency, after all. And rail companies are local monopolies, so they're doing whatever brings more money next quarter.
>I find that hard to believe
History is littered with complacent businesses that failed to innovate.
how much space we could save on highways if we have electric self driving trucks doing mile long convoys - self driving trucks can have short "safe distance" between them.
radars can be dual use - as radar and as communication device. 60ghz wifi has 10gbps speeds, line of sight only, so excellent for connecting columns of trucks.
And then you still have each truck with an individual ICE, how is that better than an electric locomotive? (Yes I know, the rail network isn't nearly as electrised as much of Europe)
Still, I love seeing the swap bodies rolling up the passes in Austria.
That would literally fix nothing. Moving long range trucking to electric rail actually does.
Hmm yummie! Even more tire dust of extra fine grade. Black marmalade. Tar Star Wunderbar!1!!
Not to mention more wear out of the highways.