05-22-2020, 09:29 AM
(05-21-2020, 08:36 PM)tomh009 Wrote: For automotive, which is a huge chunk of the trade, it's almost certainly JIT, which is quite hard to do (in North America) by rail today.
For other things, it depends also on rail cost (multiple rail lines involved), the speed of delivery (ditto), the available capacity, and the available rail connections. The rail network coverage in North America really is quite pathetic.
Again, that explains why the shippers and logistics people are not being stupid when they use trucks.
None of that in any way explains how it makes sense to have thousands of trucks all individually travelling through the US at the same time with one driver per load rather than collecting hundreds of them together and having two people drive them as a train.