I was having a conversation with a customer the other day and the subject of trucks came up. If you really want to cut the output of noxious airborne pollutants let’s not worry about Google and instead worry about something that makes a real and definite impact. Trucks. The culmination of the conversation that I had was that there are almost no cases in which it’s required to use a truck to haul goods across the country (or more than a hundred miles or so most places in the East). But to pull something like that off we’ll have to completely change the way business is done. [Ha! didn't use the word paradigm in that sentence at all]

The problem is that companies have gotten used to the idea that they can order something and have it in 3 days regardless of where it’s originating or going. Transit time on rail is calculated as 24 hours plus 8 hours per hundred miles. [MATH ALERT!] So a boxcar from LA to Boston should take about 10d 21h based on the Amtrak route mileage from LA to Boston of 3263 miles. A tractor trailer can legally cover the LA to Boston in roughly 4d based on 44 hour driving time listed in Google Maps. The average truck will use about [hang on I have to break out a spread sheet to do the math for me - ok I'm back ] 398 gallons of diesel fuel to make the trip. A train can haul the same amount of freight with about 168 gallons [I think, math is hard and my head hurts a little].

To be fair (there’s always a catch isn’t there), according to the American Trucking Association, trains use high sulphur diesel and trucks use ultra low sulphur diesel and trains are generally much dirtier as far as emissions go. I’m not sure by how much though and I’m not interested enough to try and figure it out.

At any rate, that’s how most frieght should be shipped IMO. For instance, let’s say there is a container ship that docks in LA carrying, among other things, a container full of  shoes some of which are destined for the Shoe Carnival warehouse in Lebanon, TN.  Probably the most efficient way to do it is the bring the container to a warehouse in LA break it down and re-load the container full of shoes going to Lebanon. Take it to the railyard and load it on a train bound for Nashville. Unload in Nashville and put the container on a chassis for transport to Lebanon via truck. Total distance transported by truck is whatever it is from the Port of Los Angeles to the LA warehouse to the railyard in LA and then from the railyard in Nashville to Lebanon. Otherwise it’s about 2,000 miles.

There are a couple of ways to do it if Lebanon is not getting a full container load of shoes all of which would be more fuel friendly than the current way of doing things.

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