[nickbauman]

No it doesn't have a world class freight rail network. The North American rail infra is incredibly primitive. Most of it is "dark territory" (no track sensors), unlike Europe. I used to write rail automation software for a German firm. They were appalled at the state of affairs here. One of the most lucrative rail systems in the US had an average speed of their trains in the single digits MPH!

[twawaaay]

I think the term "world class" is unfortunate with connection to freight rail networks.

Freight does not need to travel super fast or super high tech. What it needs is to be able to travel everywhere at high throughput and cheaply. US is doing quite well in that regard.

[bobthepanda]

High throughput comes with a caveat, since it’s high throughput given the existing poor conditions.

The US used to have much more tracks, but the private railroads stripped a lot of them as far as they could get away with. There are lines that were four-tracked or were electrified that have now been reduced to unelectrified single track, so you now have a much more sluggish, polluting and congested railroad, and on top of that much is poorly maintained to save money.

—-

Also a lot of the freight is bulk freight like coal. This has led to some interesting dynamics where freight railroads oppose coal plant closures, because they will lose a major source of tonnage.

[panick21_]

> Freight does not need to travel super fast or super high tech.

That depends on what you want to ship. In the US the train just gave up on many other class of freight. Yes, large scale slow bulk transport doesn't need speed, other things might.

[seanmcdirmid]

> Most of it is "dark territory" (no track sensors), unlike Europe.

Have you seen the USA? The places where they lack track sensors are basically out in the middle of nowhere with no one around for miles.

> One of the most lucrative rail systems in the US had an average speed of their trains in the single digits MPH!

That really isn't bad for freight. They optimize freight for throughput, not latency (something passenger rail is more concerned with).

[sudosysgen]

Track sensors are especially useful in they middle of nowhere.

And there are plenty of latency sensitive applications for freight rail which are developed in other places. They don't make sense in the US because the capability isn't there, not because there's no market for it.

[cptcobalt]

I'm surprised by the general opposition to your comment. I agree. US transit infrastructure, including rail, is anything but world class. Sure, we move tons of freight, but is that the standard alone?

Just because it works doesn't mean it can't be improved better. It's always ok to reject the "don't fix it if it's not broken" mentality.

[SllX]

In the context of freight, it is the lone standard because as another commenter pointed out, throughput is more important than latency in bulk goods transport whereas latency is a much more important variable when passengers are involved.

US rail owners and operators know what the variables are that they care about and their customers care about are, and also what insurance companies care about and as a result, they are adept at moving goods coast to Great Lakes to coast, across the Appalachians, Missouri-Mississippi river system, the Great Plains, the Rockies, the Great Basin, the Sierra Nevadas, the Cascades and the California Coastal Range.

If they’re not using some software package or have complete sensor coverage on their tracks, they probably judged that they don’t need it. If a competitor actually finds advantage with these things tomorrow, then they will all adopt it.

[skellera]

I think it’s easy to call something out as primitive but what changes could be made and how much impact would it have? It doesn’t seem like our freight trains are the bottleneck when moving goods around the country.

[ant6n]

They kind of are if you consider how many goods are still shipped by trucks.

The US is perfect for rail - lots of long trips, with lots of goods. It could probably have more market share if goods could move more quickly and flexibly.

[throwaway0a5e]

And how much tonnage moves on your "smart" rails? I'll let you pick the metric.

[cptcobalt]

Imo, your choice of scare quotes around "smart" telegraph your unwillingness to consider even a well-founded data informed argument, for what it's worth.