I think a big reason why trains aren’t used more (and why highway trucking is booming) is because the industry is sclerotic. In the US at least, it is one of the most conservative industries there is at all levels: regulators, companies, and workers. And because of the difficulty of switching, it’s hard to incrementally innovate on the system.
That said, there ARE companies innovating in this space. This seems like an obvious improvement on the status quo: https://moveparallel.com/
With battery-electric systems (enabled by lithium-ion), there is no massive benefit from centralizing motive power in the locomotives (thermal engines gain a lot of efficiency by scaling up, electric systems can operate efficiently at any scale), so you can just have individual packet-switching-like rail cars. Containerization systems (such as cranes, etc) open up the trade space for switching payloads without requiring complex and land-intensive switching yards for everything.
And there should be more room on the freight rail system as we decarbonize. Coal was 25% of rail volume in 2009 (much higher, if you go by total originated rail tonnage). There will be room on the railroads for more volume.
I think a big reason why trains aren’t used more (and why highway trucking is booming) is because the industry is sclerotic. In the US at least, it is one of the most conservative industries there is at all levels: regulators, companies, and workers. And because of the difficulty of switching, it’s hard to incrementally innovate on the system.
That said, there ARE companies innovating in this space. This seems like an obvious improvement on the status quo: https://moveparallel.com/
With battery-electric systems (enabled by lithium-ion), there is no massive benefit from centralizing motive power in the locomotives (thermal engines gain a lot of efficiency by scaling up, electric systems can operate efficiently at any scale), so you can just have individual packet-switching-like rail cars. Containerization systems (such as cranes, etc) open up the trade space for switching payloads without requiring complex and land-intensive switching yards for everything.
And there should be more room on the freight rail system as we decarbonize. Coal was 25% of rail volume in 2009 (much higher, if you go by total originated rail tonnage). There will be room on the railroads for more volume.