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.
Less open to the elements now.[1] The lorries now ride Eurotunnel in cars with a solid roof and steel truss sides. The roof is to prevent projecting objects such as antennas from contacting the overhead power line (that's happened) and the open sides are to allow fire extinguishing (that's happened, more than once.)
Such are the practical problems of a "rolling highway" Eurotunnel has had to solve.
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)
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.
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
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
Mesmerizing clip — the fact that the trailer's front control system requires a ground-walker, walking backwards, with the first set of wheels constantly nipping at his feet [OSHA?]. Thanks for sharing.
There’s a whole subculture of “trucks moving huge objects” on YouTube - it’s a rabbit hole you can lose yourself in so thoroughly you start recognizing the equipment.
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.
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.
> If you take a railroad worker from the 1980-s, they would be able to work, with only minor training.
The same could be said about computer programmers.
Trains and trucks serve two different markets. Trains are better for long hauls of bulk goods or containerized cargo where you have a lot of stuff all going from one place (e.g. a port) to another (inland distribution hub).
Trucks are good for "last-mile" local delivery or small loads/single containers going from one place to another.
> The same could be said about computer programmers.
Not really. Programming has fundamentally changed since the 80-s: version control systems, connectivity, new and more efficient languages, etc. Train yards have not changed a bit. Dispatchers might have computers now, and individual train cars can be tracked in a central DB, but the physical work of coupling/decoupling cars and shuffling them around has not changed AT ALL.
> Trucks are good for "last-mile" local delivery or small loads/single containers going from one place to another.
The US is special, it's geographically HUGE, so trucks end up playing an outsized role in long-distance transport.
Trains are much cheaper and more efficient, so they can potentially help to reduce CO2 pollution _and_ the transportation cost. But train companies are just not interested in that.
Having self-driving trucks transported on the interchangeable flatbeds can potentially change that. Trucks can just drive onto the waiting traincars, ride to the destination location, and then just drive off the flatbeds.
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.
One such "strange approach" was the Roadrailer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roadrailer
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.
Less open to the elements now.[1] The lorries now ride Eurotunnel in cars with a solid roof and steel truss sides. The roof is to prevent projecting objects such as antennas from contacting the overhead power line (that's happened) and the open sides are to allow fire extinguishing (that's happened, more than once.)
Such are the practical problems of a "rolling highway" Eurotunnel has had to solve.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8r0kjJvvIY
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?
I think I don't understand tge video, but isn't the train here very slow? I thought it would be minimum 100kph to be fast.
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)
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.
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.
Yeah I was saying that about Amtrak specificially.
Amtrak only has the 1 route, called the Auto Train. It's itself a single route, there are no others.
It goes from ~D.C.~ to Sanford, Florida [near Disney World].
THE ROADS MUST ROLL, by Robert A. Heinlein, 1940
https://ia601208.us.archive.org/32/items/calibre_library_178...
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.
Mesmerizing clip — the fact that the trailer's front control system requires a ground-walker, walking backwards, with the first set of wheels constantly nipping at his feet [OSHA?]. Thanks for sharing.
There’s a whole subculture of “trucks moving huge objects” on YouTube - it’s a rabbit hole you can lose yourself in so thoroughly you start recognizing the equipment.
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.
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.
> If you take a railroad worker from the 1980-s, they would be able to work, with only minor training.
The same could be said about computer programmers.
Trains and trucks serve two different markets. Trains are better for long hauls of bulk goods or containerized cargo where you have a lot of stuff all going from one place (e.g. a port) to another (inland distribution hub).
Trucks are good for "last-mile" local delivery or small loads/single containers going from one place to another.
> The same could be said about computer programmers.
Not really. Programming has fundamentally changed since the 80-s: version control systems, connectivity, new and more efficient languages, etc. Train yards have not changed a bit. Dispatchers might have computers now, and individual train cars can be tracked in a central DB, but the physical work of coupling/decoupling cars and shuffling them around has not changed AT ALL.
> Trucks are good for "last-mile" local delivery or small loads/single containers going from one place to another.
The US is special, it's geographically HUGE, so trucks end up playing an outsized role in long-distance transport.
Trains are much cheaper and more efficient, so they can potentially help to reduce CO2 pollution _and_ the transportation cost. But train companies are just not interested in that.
Having self-driving trucks transported on the interchangeable flatbeds can potentially change that. Trucks can just drive onto the waiting traincars, ride to the destination location, and then just drive off the flatbeds.
>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.