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Comment by trenning | Hacker News Reader

How screwed are commercial rail companies going to be when coal finally phases out?

What will replace that space or will their revenue just slowly drop?

Coal accounts for ~11.5% of rail volume[0], so they won't be screwed. (obviously not great to lose that much business) You might see prices drop due to a lack of demand, but other products will still be shipped via rail. Intermodal containers have been increasing in volume recently and I could see that taking up some excess supply.

[0] https://www.aar.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/AAR-Coal-Fact...

Coal transport by rail is already way down: https://www.aar.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/AAR-Coal-Fact...

I suspect intermodal rail transport will probably do well as long as we keep buying cargo from Asia on post-Panamax ships.

I saw Amazon branded shipping containers on a freight train just the other week

Could those have been intermodal containers, each of which will eventually be hauled on a tractor trailer?

Some containers go right from boat to rail, or maybe moved around the yard at the port to go from the boat to rail. Amazon may also have warehouses serviced by rail spurs, and not have to use trucking to get their containers from a rail terminal. I don't know if they do, but certainly some containers don't see any road on the way from the shipper to the receiver.

In Canada we ship oil via rail because the rail barons blocked the pipelines.

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