Rail is the backbone of long haul heavy transport. That is rail’s best efficiency. If established, even short haul rail can compete vs trucks. Trucks are best at local delivery and short haul or specialty long haul. Rail shouldn’t need subsidies if they are efficient, neither should trucks or air freight. But, they ALL get subsidies. We all like our cars because they give us independence, but does that mean they are efficient when we take trips to the store for one item?

Remember, markets are and have been distorted for a very long time. Does the banking/credit-debt industry look efficient? Look at Gold and Silver and tell me if that market is being manipulated or not.

Mainline freight-rail in the USA is second to none. Get a few feet off the mainline and it’s a waste of money though… close most of the spurs and use trucks.

((Eastie, read me again. Military, There are forward deployed units all over the world… often on ships (my god how boring). For sustained conflict or very large conflict, the local armor is moved to the ports. If you look at Gowen and places like it, they have huge expansion capacity as a rear area assembly and training point. It is outdated pre-ICBM era planning, but that’s still the Army thinking. It’s why Gowen has so many empty buildings and vast space… and a rail spur. So, just a few spurs are needed for t military nationwide at places like Gowen and other tank depots. The remaining short-line logging and farm rail is not needed any longer. Rip it up so politicos won’t waste money on it.))

“…Trains are far more energy-efficient than trucks — and they always will be…”

“…trains can move a ton of freight more than 450 miles on a gallon of fuel. What they don’t tell you is that, in 1980, that distance was only 235 miles. While freight trains have doubled fuel efficiency over the past few decades, tractor-trailers remain nearly as inefficient as they were in the 1970s. The average semi got 5.6 miles per gallon in 1973, and today that has improved to just 6.5 miles. (The American Trucking Association did not respond to a request for comment.)…”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/lets-make-an-effort-to-move-more-freight-by-rail-and-less-by-road-trains-are-more-efficient/2014/03/03/d1947278-9d90-11e3-9ba6-800d1192d08b_story.html

Rail over Roads, You mention the need for short lines as if “without rail the fast reaction forces will need to be forward deployed”.
Hmmm so shall we just ignore all the actual Marine forces already forward deployed24/7/365? Oh wait, you think Gowen’s tanks are our “Fast reaction forces”… okay, now I understand.

In any case, I would rather see tax dollars develop/improve rail from Lewiston to the Portland port for replacing Lewiston’s shipping barges. Now that’s worth some tax dollars.
Oh wait,,,, did someone say rail is more efficient and shouldn’t need subsidies? 🙂

Or, Crapo and Congress could instead focus on subsidizing a high-speed rail from coast to coast…. you know, like the rest of the developed world has available to them.

Imagine shipping light-weight cargo and people on a bullet train from Silicon Valley to Chicago and New York INSTEAD of diesel.

However, rail cannot hold a candle to trucking and buses for small loads or short routes. The newest trucks are beating 10mpg with 80,000lbs loads. They have NatGas fueled trucks too.

I suggest turning the short-line RRs into nature trails so as never to spend a dime on them ever again. Most of the short lines were built before we had reliable roads / trucks. Someday the rail beds could be reclaimed for high-speed passenger rail perhaps… but no need to preserve short freight rail unless there’s some military strategic value.

I mention the military because rail is how they quickly move 200 tanks at a time to the ports. Look at the Army tank depot hidden in the desert to the SE of Boise. N43.296977, W116.057967. Without rail the heavy armor of fast reaction forces will need to be located at the port cities or in forward deployed storage. Note, this depot is very near the UPRR mainline.

Both the rail and road infrastructure in the USA is literally ready to fall down. It’s disgusting and on par with the failed water system in Flint, MI. It upsets me that our elected officials pee money away on stuff like this.

Oh, one more thing; modern trains still start fires… all that steel and friction… and embers from big diesels. They actually follow trains around with a wild land fire truck to put out the fires. Far better than the old steam trains though.

I suggest that halfheartedly, I struggle to think of a federal program where I think it is run efficiently and effectively.

To the best of my knowledge they have never done any track repair or upgrade and one sometimes wonders.

Source: Track is directly behind my backyard in Nampa.

EDITOR NOTE: Thanks, we fixed it.