Rail transport

Rail transport is defined as moving goods and people on trains running on metal tracks. Tracks are laid above and underground, across plains, above waterways, and around and through mountains. Rail transport is one of the most efficient and cost-effective methods of intercity and cross-country travel.

Tracks are fastened to wooden ties or concrete slabs to prevent shifting and movement of rails on "railroads" designed by road engineers. Trains carry more passengers than buses and haul greater amounts of goods. Since locomotives are powerful and train wheels create less friction, train cars can be coupled together increasing haulage and capacity.

Armies and global trading companies lobbied governments to develop rail transport, sometimes called "rolling stock," because the infrastructure needed is capital intensive. Rail transport is more energy efficient than over-the-road trucking. Goods shipped by railcar are less often stolen, lost, or damaged. It is cost effective for railway companies to share track and rail lines. The largest US freight-carrying railway logged 169 million miles in 2010. In 2023, rail freight moved nearly 1.8 billion metric tons of various materials.

Brief History

Rail transport history traces to the sixth century BCE Greece. Train cars rolling on wooden tracks were pulled by enslaved people and animals used for centuries in mines to haul out rock and minerals. Like empire building spurred naval development, the Industrial Revolution inspired rail transport, moving coal cheaply around 1800 to manufacturing centers and to ports shipping goods for export.

Inventors created steam-powered engines to pull mighty trains widely used in the 1700s and 1800s. By 1804, the first steam locomotive was introduced, pulling a train hauling ten tons of iron in Wales of the United Kingdom. Three years later came the first fare-paying passenger rail transport service.

Short haul rail transport flourished in the late 1800s and early twentieth century with the advent of electrified trains and rapid transit development. Not until 1830 did rail transport begin in the United States. Throughout this period, countries built rail transport across continental Europe, Australia, Canada, Cuba, Latin America, and South America. The famous Orient Express memorialized in movies and literature for its luxe with fine accommodations and fine dining opened in 1883 by a private company, ceasing operations in 2009. It first ran between Paris and Istanbul.

During World War II, diesel-electric locomotives became popular for their speed and power to pull trains for long hauls. By the 1960s, technological advances in diesel-electric locomotives transformed rail transport to high-speed transportation. The Bullet Train first ran between Tokyo and Osaka, Japan. The National Railroad passenger corporation is privately supported by government money to operate in the United States. Doing business as Amtrak, more than three hundred trains run each day connecting more than five hundred locations in forty-six states and Canada. Amtrak rail transports nearly thirty million passengers annually. In concordance with the US superhighway network and air transportation system, the federal government underwrites the rail transport system in case of national emergencies.

Rail Transport Today

Rail transport is not popular with Americans despite the seemingly high numbers of annual passengers. It is a slow travel medium, which is a disadvantage to people traveling for business or only two weeks’ vacation per year. Rail transport operates at a financial loss, and its budget is bandied back and forth between Congress and the White House. Rail transport in Europe and America has been privatized but remains subject to government regulations for safety. Thus, rail transport must operate profitably like any other corporation to survive.

The success of rail transport depends on the strength of the nation’s economy. In 2008-09, with the worldwide recession in full bloom, rail freight transport fell by more than 20 percent. De-unionization of the trucking industry and low-cost airlines ate away at the competitive financial capabilities of rail transport. Europe’s largest rail transport freight company lost 500 million euros in its 2009 cargo service.

The advantages and disadvantages in rail transport shift with time and economic stability. For instance, capital expenditures are often covered by government contributions, but frequent maintenance is expensive and subject to weather conditions, aging equipment, earthquakes, and floods. Jobs in rail transport are good paying with excellent benefits, creating a healthy work environment and stable dependable workforce. Sustainable profitability is compromised, however, by rail transport’s unionized workforce that creates inefficiencies in setting wages and work rules other privatized industries do not suffer.

Rail transport suffers inflexibility with fixed routes and rail lines. Freight is unloaded at terminals, sorted, and shipped on trucks to destinations, adding significantly to the costs of shipping. Mergers and acquisitions once the industry privatized have created monopolies that do not always consider the public’s best interests. Shippers have to locate their own rail transport bookings and negotiate prices, finding there is no service in large rural areas. Its large capacity for bulk goods can lead to higher prices when rail transport is underutilized.

Rail transport remains the greenest environmentally friendly means of moving people and freight vis-à-vis emissions and fossil fuels. New hybrid locomotives are cutting the carbon footprint of the industry with innovations like air-to-air cooling systems burning fuel more efficiently and cleanly, while maintaining horsepower. Cargo containers were seen more on rail transport in 2024 than railcars hauling grain, coal, and other bulk liquids.

Rail transport freight companies are using high-tech digital tracking systems keeping tabs on cargo and trains all the time. This helps cut lost inventory, avoids collisions, and ultimately will make trains more autonomous with artificial intelligence reducing the workforce and making rail transport more cost competitive.

Passenger rail transport is taking advantage of many of the same high-tech solutions. Toronto to Montreal is a 550km (330 miles) trip that takes five hours, but a proposed high speed train could bring that time down to three hours. High speed trains run across Europe and a trip from Barcelona to Paris, a distance of about 516 miles (831 km) could be made in under seven hours in 2024. A Shanghai to Beijing train travels at speeds exceeding 300 miles per hour. Intracity rail transport is often automated from central headquarters and driverless. New signal systems employing digital train control systems make cross-continental travel much safer.

A private company, SkyTran, is building a monorail system transporting passengers around Tel Aviv in lightweight two-passenger vehicles suspended from magnetic levitation tracks moving at 100 miles per hour or faster. NASA is collaborating in this futurist rail transport that expects to move 11,500 passengers per hour per direction.

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