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Comment by nefitty | Hacker News Reader

I'm not really clear on why people are surprised about these thefts. Isn't train robbery a western film trope? Maybe we've culturally forgotten trains, but they're the mitochondria, the powerhouse of the cell. Train chicanery was even an integral part of the civil war.

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In America, the train hasn't been that vital to infrastructure since the era that inspired the trope. Trucks move 7 times more value annually [https://www.bts.gov/newsroom/2017-north-american-freight-num...].

Frieght rail carries a stupid amount of goods. If you use a carrier like Hub Group or JB Hunt to ship containers cross country odds are the bulk of the mileage is on rail. This is doubly true for bulk goods. Nobody is hauling bulk goods very far by truck.

If you live in a major urban area you'd never see it though because the intermodal facilities tend to be at or beyond the beltway (more efficient to truck the last 20-100mi).

Trains absolutely are vital, unless you think 2,500,000 tonne-km could be added to the highways -- already carrying 3,000,000 tonne-km [1].

Trains also do that with only 10% of the fuel [2].

I'm not sure what the table you link is showing. Is it $-km, or $-journeys?

[1] https://www.bts.gov/us-tonne-kilometers-freight

[2] https://www.bts.gov/content/fuel-consumption-mode-transporta...

that's because the majority of economic activity are near ports where train wouldn't be as useful. as a result the bulk of goods transported by train are to the lower populated areas where again the last mile is done by truck.

doesn't make trains not vital.

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