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Comment by irrational | Hacker News Reader

This was my thought too. All containers go from one port to one huge warehouse? Why is that not done by train?

Also, where is this warehouse? I’m thinking that when society collapses, that might be a great place to pick up stuff.

There is a train line that helps, but it's not enough.

> Also, where is this warehouse? I’m thinking that when society collapses, that might be a great place to pick up stuff.

It is a collection of warehouses, not one single warehouse, and they are in Ontario and Redlands, CA. You can seem them clearly on satellite pics surrounding the I-10/I-15 and I-10/CA-210 interchanges:

https://www.google.com/maps/@34.0825717,-117.4149858,56798m/...

Oh, out by Fontana. My brother used to live there. He called in Fontucky.

NIMBY. The hurdles to constructing a new rail line are practically insurmountable.

Yet people are fine with building / enlarging roads...

Why not in the middle of the freeway? Sacrifice 2-3 lanes or do it raised, one for freight another for metro. Last mile transportation still needs to be solved, light rail would be awesome to and you and down main streets.

That is not trivial at all. How do you go against status quo which is to add more lanes for cars? How do you get the train from the middle of the freeway or raised portion to outside/ground level? Where do you put railyards to break/make trains to deliver to/from local places? I'm all for freight trains, but there is no way they can simply piggyback on car infrastructure.

Let’s hear some ideas, so far it’s how it doesn’t work. California has that in spades.

Except they're not fine with that. In Southern California it's basically solid humanity from the ocean to the deserts in the east. The existing freeways can't be expanded, there's nowhere for them to expand into. Businesses and houses butt right up against all of the freeways.

This is the same problem with rail lines there. There's nowhere to build new rail lines. People live and work anywhere you might want to lay track.

Trying to build tracks or roads is complicated by geography. There's tons of hills that are impractical to tunnel through and there's a fairly steep grade from the coast to inland areas. The train tracks exist where tracks are most practical.

No, they're not. They fight that tooth and nail too.

The thing is, you can piecemeal road improvement, a lane here, a better interchange there, etc, so you're not facing too many NIMBYs at once. You can't do that with a new rail line.

I wonder if the rail line is under used therefore investment can’t be justified therefore it’s not all that capable. I don’t know the geography on the ground, probably a lot of level crossings, but what of it could be sped up, run trains closer together?

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