A Complete Guide to the Future of U.S. Freight Movement

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FangKC
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A Complete Guide to the Future of U.S. Freight Movement

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Fascinating article about the movement of freight in the USA. Lots of great statistics.

A Complete Guide to the Future of U.S. Freight Movement

The future holds more and more stuff to be transported—and infrastructure will have to change drastically to accommodate our appetites.

http://www.citylab.com/work/2014/10/a-c ... nt/381012/
Regardless of national origin, pretty much all of it came from outside Atlanta, by means ranging from 1,200-foot-long container vessel to oxcart. And that's just breakfast. For all of our activities, the average American requires the movement of 57 tons of cargo per year.
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Bigger ships or not, more stuff is coming, so the capacity to keep it moving throughout the country is necessary, and rail proves to be the most efficient mode of land transport. The American Association of Railroads says that in 2013, railroads moved a ton of freight an average of 473 miles on a single gallon of diesel fuel. Rail is widely considered to be three to four times more fuel efficient than trucks, and especially vital for moving bulk cargo—two-thirds of U.S. coal shipments move by rail, for instance. Not so incidentally, coal generates half of the country's electricity, which is what keeps that toaster, refrigerator, and coffeemaker in Atlanta working.
The DOT estimates an 88 percent increase in rail freight demand by 2035, and Forbes recently predicted that rail will become the most important logistics system of the 21st Century. The reliability and efficiency of rail is already eating into trucking's market share, as trains are increasingly used for hauls as short as 500 miles, formerly only the domain of trucks. But increasing capacity of the country's 140,000-mile rail network and its upkeep will require huge capital expenditure, estimated by the Federal Railroad Administration to reach $149 billion over the next 20 years.
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In 2013, a high-speed freight train traveled over 6,000 miles from Zhengzhou, China, to Hamburg, Germany in two weeks, less than half the time it takes by sea.
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The FHA estimates that in the next 30 years, there will be 60 percent more trucks, translating to significant slowing on 28,000 miles of the NHS during peak hours, and stop-and-go conditions on an additional 46,000 miles.
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