Which gets better ton-miles per gallon of fuel: a typical freight train or a typical tractor trailor?

Question

A ton-mile means a ton of cargo carried for one mile.

The purpose of the question is to help determine whether we can save oil, especially diesel fuel, by shifting some of the interstate freight traffic from trucks to railroads.

Answer 1

Andy hit it right on the head, trains hands down are the most energy efficient form of land based transportation.

I would add this: according the Department of Transportation, the average over the road truck pays approximately 70% of the road damage it incurs through fuel and other taxes, guess who makes up the difference??

Trucks are heavily subsidized.

Answer 2

What Andy said, but even more.   Freight railroads can run full electric - and have in the past.

Andy is wrong to blame politicians and big business. Today's oil crisis is simply due to there being more people in the world with cars, and more industry.  Mostly this is economic expansion in other countries.  They're bidding up the price to oil's REAL value (what people will pay). You seemed to really like that idea when people bid up your $50,000 house to $200,000, lol!

Answer 3

Trains beat trucks hands down.A train can move a ton of freight 436 miles on a gallon of fuel.A truck can only haul it 59 miles.The last time they pulled the oil shortage on us rail business increased a lot.If things stay the same as they are now or get even worse it will happen again.We run along a major highway and we can already see a big reduction in truck traffic.It's sad though that independent owner operators are being forced out of business by corporate greed and self serving politicians.The only difference between them and an armed robber is one used a gun.

Answer 4

To measure just how efficient rail transport is compared to trucks, check out this carbon calculator put together by CSX Transportation, one of the nation's largest railroads.

Answer 5

Trains get better than semi's...but you can't pull a train up to your front door with that new t.v.