<i>Virtually none of the consumer goods arriving in California and Florida are shipped within the US by train...</i>

I would need an explanation of what was in the five-mile long train consisting entirely of HANJIN sea-land containers I encountered along I-10 between California and Phoenix. Or was that &quot;virtually none?&quot;

There is no such thing as &quot;European trains&quot;.

Europe is still a patchwork of national railway systems with different currents, signalling, and requirements for both locomotives and personnel. So, you either need locomotives that can run under up to four different currents (which are more expensive) or switch locos at every &quot;current border&quot;, you need to deal with every national railway system to reserve (and pay for) track usage, and so on. And you need drivers who are nationally licensed to run the trains.

While road traffic has been able to benefit from European unification and standardization, e.g. thru the Schengen treaty (no time wasted at former borders) or general EU wide liberalisation of customs procedures, the European countries still handle their railways like 100 years ago.

Cross-border trains often make sense for bulk cargo that can be planned ahead well (like the timber trains from Sweden to the Continent, or the trash trains from Naples to Germany), and do not require many just-in-time adjustments.

Cowboy1968: In the US, the freight trains (and all long range trains outside the NE corridor) are diesel-electric, rather than straigh electric engines. Furthermore, an increasing percentage of that rail traffic is in the form of containers that have been delivered to ports.

US freight carriers have gone through a couple of decades of consolidation and now are doing pretty well. However, as has been pointed out, freight and passenger service on the same line really aren't compatible. Passenger rail service in the US is hampered by a lower population density, and less robust public transit system in destination cities (visitors need a rental car to get around in most major US cities--with a few exepctions).

I just returned this morning from a 10-day trip back to the U.S. (PHL and Pa Dutch country) and did notice the frequency of freight trains. I forgot what it was like to go to sleep at night to the sound of freight trains passing a few miles away (As Paul Simon wrote: &quot;everybody loves the sound of a train in the distance...&quot;). Trains are a very practical choice for moving freight in the U.S. except when natural disasters (fire, floods, landslides, earthquakes, etc.) bring the lines to a halt. It's not easy to re-route freight trains when such a disaster occurs.

What was also interesting was driving around with my older relatives and having them point out where the pax trolleys and trains used to run. These routes were efficient and popular during the 40s and 50s (from Lancaster to Philly and Harrisburg, from Lebanon to Reading, Hershey and Harrisburg, from Allentown, Quakertown and Bethlehem to Phila, etc.), then fell out of use when it became the fashion to go everywhere by car instead. Now there is a soft but steadily rising drumbeat among the people I talked to for finding ways to put at least some of those routes back into action.

I would love to see more trans-European freight trains...I hate getting stuck behind one lorry after another after another on the German autobahns!

nytraveler uttered the &quot;infrastructure&quot; word. Watching CSPAN yesterday Sen. Dodd of CT. was moderating a discussion with several Mayors who pointed out that there was a need for a nonpartison regulatory agency whose responsibilty would be to oversee a National program in lieu of earmarks for local projects even though earmarks represented how Senators get reelected. Rail, Water, Roads, and Bridges were a few of the infrastucture problems faced in part by local, state and federal funding.

&lt;No Nike sneakers move round the US on a train.&gt;

I'd bet most of them do - in containers to dozens of regional centers where trucks are waiting to whisk them to Nike warehouses

How could the world's foremost expert get this so wrong?

&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;
How could the world's foremost expert get this so wrong?
&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;&gt;

jingoism is the enemy of objective thinking. it's not about being right, it's about fighting for your team.

OK in that case flimflanner.uk could still be the world's foremost authority and its top jingoist as well - thanks for clarifying that

Hmmm, I guess the Fodor junior commandos have a blank schedule today; as the whack-a-doo posts and retorts are already in full swing.
Ciao.....things to do It is another beautiful day!!! Light breeze, calm seas, what more does one need?

BTilke, regarding your comment about various rail/ trolley networks fell out of use when &quot;it became the fashion to go everywhere by car.&quot; This &quot;fashion&quot; was fostered by a deliberate strategy put together by GEneral Motors and several of the big Oil companies. This has been documented in several well-researched books and has not been denied by any of the parties.

These corporations formed a NEW corp. called &quot;City Line&quot; somthing, and using this dummy corp., bought controlling interest in big-city transit systems and inter-city ditto, many of which were privately owned befdore the 1950s.

Once in charge, the representatives of &quot;City Line&quot; sold off trolleys and actually ripped up track &amp; repaved so the systems could not be reactivated readily. They substituted busses on much less-frequent schedules and at higher fares. I witnessed this happen in my home town of Indianapolis and knew the writer of an expose on the destruction of the LA transit system.

The twin goals were (1) to sell GM busses instad of trolleys and (2) more importantly, to stimulate sales of private cars by making public transportation less accessible and more costly. These goals have been documented.

The GOP admin in the early 50s smiled benignly on this. The secretary of commerce was ex-head of GM. &quot;what's good for GEneral Motors is Good for America&quot; is his famous saying.

And the Interstate Highway program from Ike era gutted intercity trains as well

and even urban rail networks as freeways made commuting to the suburbs so quick - contributing to white flight and the resulting racial divide between suburbs and city

Travelerjan, I'm well aware of the driving forces behind that fashion, however, thank you for the lecture.

But that doesn't change the fact that it did indeed become the fashion to drive instead of take mass transit.

I hope things will swing the other way but...