Rail freight transport

When considered in terms of ton-miles or tonne-kilometers hauled, energy efficiency can be greater with rail transportation than with other means.

These costs may exceed that of operating the train itself, a factor that practices such as containerization, trailer-on-flatcar or rolling highway aim to minimize.

A single car might be reclassified or switched in several yards before reaching its final destination, a process that made rail freight slow and increased costs.

In the United States, particularly in the West and Midwest, towns developed with railway and factories often had a direct rail connection.

There is almost no interaction with airfreight, close cooperation with ocean-going freight and a mostly competitive relationship with long distance trucking and barge transport.

[7] Freight trains are sometimes illegally boarded by individuals who do not have the money or the desire to travel legally, a practice referred to as "hopping".

[citation needed] The heaviest trains in the world carry bulk traffic such as iron ore and coal.

Daqin Railway transports more than 1 million tonnes of coal to the east sea shore of China every day and in 2009 is the busiest freight line in the world[10] Such economies of scale drive down operating costs.

[13] While typically containers travel for many hundreds or even thousands kilometers on the railway, Swiss experience shows that with properly coordinated logistics, it is possible to operate a viable intermodal (truck + rail) cargo transportation system even within a country as small as Switzerland.

[15] In the United States, Southern Pacific Railroad (SP) with Malcom McLean came up with the idea of the first double-stack intermodal car in 1977.

[18][19] At first it was slow to become an industry standard, then in 1984 American President Lines started working with the SP and that same year, the first all "double stack" train left Los Angeles, California for South Kearny, New Jersey, under the name of "Stacktrain" rail service.

It saved shippers money and now accounts for almost 70 percent of intermodal freight transport shipments in the United States, in part due to the generous vertical clearances used by U.S. railroads.

[citation needed] At a minimum, a way freight comprised a locomotive and caboose, to which cars called pickups and setouts were added or dropped off along the route.

Early railroads were built to bring resources, such as coal, ores and agricultural products from inland locations to ports for export.

Rail network connectivity is limited by a number of factors, including geographical barriers, such as oceans and mountains, technical incompatibilities, particularly different track gauges and railway couplers, and political conflicts.

The Marmaray project connects Europe with eastern Turkey, Iran, and the Middle East via a rail tunnel under the Bosphorus.

A variety of electrification and signaling systems is in use, though this is less of an issue for freight; however, clearances prevent double-stack service on most lines.

Buffer-and-screw couplings are generally used between freight vehicles, although there are plans to develop an automatic coupler compatible with the Russian SA3.

[citation needed] The countries of the former Soviet Union, along with Finland and Mongolia, participate in a Russian gauge-compatible network, using SA3 couplers.

Russia's Trans-Siberian Railroad connects Europe with Asia, but does not have the clearances needed to carry double-stack containers.

Numerous connections are available between Russian-gauge countries with their standard-gauge neighbors in the west (throughout Europe) and south (to China, North Korea, and Iran via Turkmenistan).

There are also links from India to Bangladesh and Nepal, and from Pakistan to Iran, where a new, but little-used, connection to the standard-gauge network is available at Zahedan.

[citation needed] The four major Eurasian networks link to neighboring countries and to each other at several break of gauge points.

[citation needed] Canada, Mexico and the United States are connected by an extensive, unified standard gauge rail network.

Freight cars are routinely interchanged between carriers, as needed, and are identified by company reporting marks and serial numbers.

With isolated exceptions, freight trains in North America are hauled by diesel locomotives, even on the electrified Northeast Corridor.

[citation needed] Ongoing freight-oriented development includes upgrading more lines to carry heavier and taller loads, particularly for double-stack service, and building more efficient intermodal terminals and transload facilities for bulk cargo.

[29] The U.S. Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 mandates eventual conversion to Positive Train Control signaling.

[citation needed] The railways of Africa were mostly started by colonial powers to bring inland resources to port.

[35] Railways carried 17.1% of EU freight in terms of tonne-km,[36] compared to road transport (76.4%) and inland waterways (6.5%).