Highway 401 Widening - Highway 8 to Townline Road

[ijmorlan]

The problem with freight rail now compared to the past is that a lot of businesses order everything Just In Time. Previously businesses would warehouse a lot of goods or materials and a large freight order makes sense. With JIT things are expected really quickly and the coordination for a large freight order would be harder. A train would normally need to have goods for many separate businesses. Not that it can't be done, the mindsets that JIT is better would have to change.

This kind of thing comes back to economics, because freight and manufacturing, much more than individual choices, is driven almost exclusively by economics.

When inefficient transportation by trucks is basically just as cheap to the user as rail freight because it's massively subsidized by the public, then we end up with this situation, because JIT does save money in warehousing and inventory.

With proper infrastructure almost all the trucks on the 401 could be replaced by trains carrying standard containers. Transfer to truck for final delivery. In the past every two bit manufacturer had a rail siding; we’re not getting that back quickly, but a transfer terminal in every city to move containers between truck and rail is perfectly reasonable.

That reminds me of something I read once which I just looked up again. Take a look at this table of trade between Canada and Mexico:

https://www144.statcan.gc.ca/nats-stna/t...AN-eng.htm

In particular, for the most recent year shown, for some reason 2008, 12 years ago, so I don’t know what happened to the last 12 years’ data, but note these numbers:

Total trade: 22,287
Rail: 3,805
Road: 13,503

What is going on here? You might be able to convince me that it’s harder than it looks to put stuff going from, say, Waterloo to Toronto on a train rather than on the 401. But it is absolutely inconceivable that it makes sense from a broad perspective to move stuff from Mexico, through the United States, to Canada, on a truck. That’s absurd. Clearly, road transport is massively subsidized, because those importers and exporters are not choosing roads because they just hate trains: they’re choosing the most cost effective for their operations.