Last month I took a long road trip across the California and Arizona deserts and I must have seen several dozen freight trains along the way. Huge locomotives, coupled together in groups of four or five, pulled seemingly endless chains of wagons with containers. The amount of freight making its way across our country day and night is staggering.
As I researched the rail roads, I learned that a freight train is extremely efficient in terms of moving cargo. A train can move one ton of cargo 450 miles using one gallon of fuel.
For contrast, on that road trip, I drove a cargo van, which weighs empty about 5,500 pounds or just over two tons. It drove about 17 miles per gallon of gas. So I moved two tons for 17 miles which would mean using that vehicle, I could move a ton of cargo 34 miles with a gallon of gas.
Freight trains are 15 times more efficient than small vans.