But US freight tonnage is dominated by cheap bulk goods, most notoriously coal, though grain and bulk liquids (petroleum, industrial).[0]
There's also a lot of intermodal / containerised freight, but this is almost exclusively long-haul "land bridge" traffic, with very little trade or viability for short-haul freight (< 500 mi) or less-than-truckload (LTL) carriage.[1]
Cross-country carriage still takes 10--14 days, despite the fact that a through-routed train travelling at 79 MPH (peak speed on most freight lines) could in theory make the distance in about a day and a half. For time-sensitive goods, including much fresh produce, this means that truck or air freight is the only viable option.
I've gone digging for any recently published research on new innovations in traditional freight technologies and ... there simply isn't any to speak of.[2] Much of the underlying infrastructure is literally a century or more old. The last major powerplant revolution was the introduction of the diesel-electric locomotive which will have its centennial next year.[3]
Given the present obsession with electrified lorry projects, it seems to me to make far more sense to look at optimising rail-based delivery to provide for far more flexible routing, dynamic trainset assembly and disassembly, higher-speed fright,[4] integration of light freight (e.g., document and high-value product delivery) with high-speed rail systems,[5] or rail-trolly systems, in which local delivery occurs via either autonomous or small-trainset convoys which decouple from a through system and reach endpoints or local distribution centres at lower speeds on local rail or dedicated roadbed routes. Similar discussion from about a year ago here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32967216>
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Notes:
0. Some 10 year old values by modality here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6858737>
1. Yes, there's some of each, but in general, lorry-based over-the-road haulage dominates both markets.
2. Raised two years ago here: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32611937>
3. <https://www.borail.org/collection/cnj-no-1000/>
4. At 120 mph, cross-country transit drops to just over a day, at 25 hours. At 160 mph, 18 hours, for same-day delivery as an option.
5. At 180 mph, typical of many high-speed rail systems, delivery time from San Francisco to Los Angeles is about 2h 15m, and routes such as NYC or Denver to Chicago, Dallas to Atlanta, or Miami to Washington, D.C., or Norfolk, VA, to Boston 5--8 hours.
