do you think the price of diesel will go high enough that they'll resort to using road trains on major highways?

YouTube - Road Train dans l'outback (Australia)

ok..its 2 am and I just cant sleep...

 

Id rather they used trains on tracks (seeing as how we invented the intercontinental train) and remove single trucks from the highways forever

 

trains dont work with time sensitive materials...

takes time to load and unload a train with 100+ boxcars

and the rails do not run everywhere they need to go

 

Also, how would you get the freight from the train to the store? Requires a secondary hauler, almost always trucks. Unless you want rails running to every business, which of course will never happen, there will always be trucks to need to haul to the individual locations. Trains are good at moving a large amount of a product or material, but individual shipping is not as effective.
I don't see road trains happening any time around the US, due to safety issues. We already have enough troubles with singles and doubles, not likely to go anything much more than that. (I realize there is even some triple smaller trailers, but most of the US doesn't have those, just in more open areas.)

 

I can see combining more loads and being more efficient with what we have. Locomotives are quite efficient and I see a lot of semi trailers on train cars.

 

Trains are for moving large loads long distances. Even if a train stopped at each business, image starting and stopping a train just to move one or two box cars up at a time.

 

Neither do trucks - that stuff flies - literally

about as much as it takes to load 200 truck trailers

but they once did, and still could - but it might not make sense to run from Bugtussle Tennessee to Hazard Georgia. Major city point to point is where the most savings is going to occur. Granted some applications like household moving cannot change but as the distance creeps over 500 miles for trailer loads, 100mpg on a flatcar beats 6mpg on the road.

right now every sector of the transportation industry is hurting except for - railroads (who woulda thunkit given that we survived the 70's) and I do not support 'rails to trails' but do support 'trails to rails'.

the average lifespan of a trucking company is now what about 5-7 years? large ones like JB hunt and UPS were about to face tough times in the current climate and started using intermodal solutions and are going to show a profit. I would much rather have mega assembly lots in each city where intermodal trains are made/broken and the drivers work an 8 hour day dropping trailers. The savings would be tremendous.

Take total intermodal solutions like containers - load a container, put it on a truck, put it on a train, put it on a boat, or the reverse. the fuel efficiency implcations are staggering. Not to mention total solution costs - labor is very intensive trucking. That 100 car frieght with 200 trailers on it require 2 guys to drive it, vs 200+

Plus choo choos are way cooler. Ever hear of anyone running model trucks in the basement?

 

edit:never mind........

 

Once of the purposes behind the "Rails to Trails" program is to preserve the Rights-of-Way as transporation corridors. Granted, there aren't many being converted back to railroad use but I'd much rather have them as bike/walking/snowmobile trails than losing the property completely.

As to the original question, I doubt we'll ever see more than tandems and the occasional triple trailer in this country. Most interstates follow the same routes as railroads which go big city to big city. If a shipper has that much freight going from the same origin to the same destination, it will most likely go via rail.....at least until the railroads **** off all their customers again as they are known to do.

 

any way to make it work soley on nuclear power and have it be safe?

 

I would think the size of the reactor and cooling system would make the train HUGE!

the tracks would all need upgrades too

 

how much bigger than a nuclear subs operating system?

 

I dunno...I dont have specs on the actual size...

but the smaller subs are 300 something feet long and 30 something feet in diameter.

I know that includes room for people and weapons, which a train wont need so many people. and no weapons.

but you are talking hundreds of tons of lead shielding..and subs have an inexhaustable cold water supply for cooling exchange.

 

There is a relatively easy way of doing that.....install overhead electric (catenary) and generate all your electricity with nuke plants. It's a win-win-win.....trucks off the road, reduced diesel emissions from the locos and decreased dependency on foreign oil.

Third rail would be cheaper and easier to install but you need much better ROW separation to make it safe - probably not practical for most lines.

 

sez who? Lionel used to make a loco that fired 4 missles....imagine what we could do in real size!!! can definitely make a dent in the deer population