Drivin' a truck with my high heels on....

[captpackrat]

I don't understand why so many companies transport goods by truck. Wouldn't it be cheaper to ship freight by train? Especially for long-haul? Why pay a truck driver to pull a load across the country when you could just load a cargo container onto a train? A single train, with just a few engineers, can pull thousands of trucks worth of goods, trucks which would require thousands of drivers, spew tons of pollution into the atmosphere, and take up space on the already conjested highways.

Is it a conspiracy by the oil companies? Is it because America is so car-centric? Has the American rail system deteriorated that badly?

Comments

[mortonfox.livejournal.com]

Flexibility. Trucks are able to deliver goods to more towns and cities, and can bring the goods directly to the warehouses and stores. Trains are still used for bulk shipments of stuff like coal and grains.