Did you not see how the markets recently reacted to certain components merely doubling in cost due to tariffs? In what world do you live in where the agricultural margins are high enough that the cattle ranchers can just casually absorb a threefold cost increase? Clearly they're eating the loss, because if they passed those costs onwards in the chain there'd certainly be huge economic consequences, as I said, and you wouldn't have felt the need to try and correct my premise. Anyway, I'd like to visit this world of yours, though only if you'd be buying the meals.
> Freight rail mainly exists as an low cost bulk carrier of convenience these days.
This is what happens when one tries to create a narrative from DoT statistics.
The reason why rail freight tonnage is less than truck tonnage is long-haul vs short-haul. You deliver lumber from the timber yard to the finishing facility once. That's rail. You don't load up trucks with semi-finished logs on an industrial scale, you don't load them with coal, you don't load them with industrial quantities of gravel or sand or steel either.
Once you have the logs processed into boards, then you use trucks to carry those boards to various short-haul destinations, where some of the boards are further processed into fence pickets and bird houses and old-timey sign posts that Roadrunner can inadvertently spin around so Wile E ends up taking a completely wrong turn. All of that stuff then goes to storefronts and warehouses (also short-haul) and as a result, the short-haul tonnage can count twice, three times, or even more, depending on just how many steps are being taken between "tree" and "birdhouse".
> Ships outcompete rail for bulk goods along inland waterways
Which is great along inland waterways, but if you're not located along them, you're probably using rail to get the bulk goods to the shipyard.
Note that the inverse situation is common at west coast ports, with short haul rail lines running to intermodal facilities so things can be loaded onto trucks for long haul. The cost of transloading to domestic containers often dominates keeping it on rails.
> The reason why rail freight tonnage is less than truck tonnage is long-haul vs short-haul. You deliver lumber from the timber yard to the finishing facility once. That's rail. You don't load up trucks with semi-finished logs on an industrial scale, you don't load them with coal, you don't load them with industrial quantities of gravel or sand or steel either.
Around here the timber arrives at the railyard by truck and aggregates are usually mined and transported locally, which is truck heavy. Grain is also majority truck these days from the BTS stats I can see, but basic materials isn't my industry.
Regardless, ton-miles aren't doubled counted. It's one ton, transported one mile. If rail took freight that extra distance, it'd get the same share (subject to all the usual caveats of industry numbers).
If the US really wanted to get it done, they could involve the army and various state national guards. They have tons of trained semi and heavy truck drivers, way more than most people would assume. Most states also have tons of trained drivers for their massive snow plows and highway repair trucks and stuff. The only thing stopping these massive projects is money and lack of imagination.
Anyone looking at massive losses will pay the sticker shock to put it on trucks. Anyone who can afford to shut down instead will wait. That's the system working as intended.
Cargo ships beat everything hands down if there's a port close to your origin and destination, and lots of water in between.
