Yeah, the US rail system is the best in the world for freight. In other countries, passenger rail has priority, so the freight service suffers a bit. In the US, it's the other way around.
The US is number 3 in the world in both total tonne-kilometers and tonne-kilometers per capita shipped by rail, and it’s in the top 10 in percentage of freight moved by rail.
US actually has (arguably) the worlds best freight rail system in large part because the size makes long distance trucking less appealing. The real issue is cars and air traffic is heavily subsidized and freight has priority on most lines.
PS: For comparison the entire EU moved less than 1/10th a much freight miles (Mass * distance) as the US dispite having a similar sized economy.
Rail is still incredibly cheap and efficient in the USA. In fact, the USA has some of the most cost effective freight rail in the world. [1]
Rail freight is also quite a bit larger than truck freight in the USA. A lot of things are railed across in an intermodal and then hitched onto a truck for regional delivery. [2]
In short, rail freight is massive in the USA and our primary mode of goods transportation.
Rail in the U.S. is the best freight rail system in the world. Europe boasts a great passenger network but fares poorly when it comes to freight.
For America to be great in both sectors, busy corridors should be dedicated to one use or the other (e.g. Northeast corridor, California, etc.). Success in having highly efficient freight systems and highly efficient passenger systems are pretty much orthogonal.
US Freight Rail is among the most utilized and most efficient in the world.
Freight Rail is actually the reason why our passenger rail sucks so much, because in USA, Freight has priority over passengers. So a lot of our passenger rails sit waiting for the freight-trains to pass.
The "fundamental problem" is probably that America is a really big country, and there are lots of livable places in the US that are far from other population centers.
> The Economist claims that the US has the best freight rail infrastructure in the world
We're talking about the greatest country on Earth. Even with the best freight rail infrastructure in the world, it may still not be up to American standards.
The USA's "terrible" railroad network is actually the best railroad network for transporting bulk goods of any country in the world. It's old but it actually works vary well.
Sorry by that only applies to US passenger rail, US freight rail is an impressively efficient system. US freight trains are diesel-electric allowing them to benefit from the high mechanical efficiency of electric engines coupled with the high energy density of diesel fuel as a power source.
The US is second only to china in terms of ton-kilometers of freight transported and moves nearly an order of magnitude more freight by rail than the EU.
With the exception of China, which has both massive freight and transport rail systems, most countries tend to trade off between transport of freight. The reason the US's transport rail is awful is because it's freight rail is incredible. And though it may be diesel it is a remarkably efficient use of is (as opposed to the trucks necessary for transport if you don't use trains)
When it comes to freight rail, the US is in the top handful of countries in the world by pretty much any metric.
We’re not great at passenger rail, but we beat all of Europe when it comes to the amount of freight shipped via rail per capita, and all of Europe except Switzerland based on the percentage of total freight transported by rail.
This. American freight rail is the marvel of the developed world and the envy of Europe: one of the reasons that recent(ish) government proposals for high-speed passenger rail were dangerous. Ask the Brits: http://www.economist.com/node/16636101
You just don't get to see freight rail in action much unless you're a good bit more blue-collar than the typical HN crowd.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usag...
The US still has one of the most vibrant freight rail networks in the world.
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