Between 2017-2019, I drove for Schneider Intermodal. We would take containers to rail yards to be shipped cross-country, or we picked up containers to deliver to a distribution center. But, the problem is not how inexpensive rails are, it is a lack of infrastructure. America would need to build thousands more miles of tracks to be able to handle a higher number of trains needed to carry more containers, and rail companies like CSX and BNSF would need to buy more "cars" to haul the increased number of containers. Unlike a tractor-trailer, it takes at least 4 days longer to get a loaded container from shipper to receiver.
Case in point: when I worked out of Chicago in 2017, a container was loaded in New Jersey going to Oakland CA for Amazon. Well, Amazon needed it sooner (it was delayed at the port in NJ for some reason), so the container was unloaded in Chicago, I picked it up and took it to Lincoln NE, where a "team" took it to Oakland. Does this happen a lot? With trains being loaded to the max, and many loaded containers needing to wait as a result, rail is not the answer.
TS
The issue isn't rails, currently it's yards and crews and the mega trains. I can explain in a little more detail, adding on to my last post.
As you know, there are for all intents and purposed 4 railroads in America. UP and BNSF in the West and NS and CSX in the East. And 2 in Canada, CP and CN which share pretty much everything coast to coast in Canada.
BNSF and UP take everything they get from the West coast ports (mainly LA/Long Beach and Oakland) and sent MOST of it to Chicago. A smaller percentage interchanges in St. Louis, Memphis or New Orleans. But most of it goes to Chicago. Traffic East to West which can originate in Miami/Ft. Lauderdale, Jacksonville, Savannah, Norfolk/Newport News, Baltimore or NY/NJ (and to a much lesser extent a handful of other ports like Tampa, Wilmington, Charleston, Boston, Philly) goes largely through Chicago as well.
Chicago is the nation's rail bottleneck. UP or BNSF have to interchange with CSX or NS and to do so, they either yard their trains, re-block them to send to either railroad, or send them to BRC (Belt Railway of Chicago) which acts like a huge freight terminal, taking inbound trains from any railroad, and re-blocking them for interchange FOR the class 1's. This is called "steel wheel transfer".
The other way they do it is to yard the train, transfer the stacks off the well cars to trailers, and dray them across town to another railroad, which then loads them back onto wells and block them into a train heading to NY/NJ, Jacksonville or some other location...
This process of interchanging in Chicago has ALWAYS been slow and problematic. But add in crews shortages, chassis shortages and container shortages, things go to hell fast. Trains heading both ways are being held out on the main for in some cases DAYS waiting to make it into Chicago. Let alone being re-blocked or unloaded to be drayed to another carrier.
So that's Chicago and the nightmare that it is.
But above and beyond that, you now have situations where intermodal, which used to be short (5000-8000 ft), fast trains are now 12000-15000 ft in an effort to save crews. Any time an issue arises en-route it takes longer to troubleshoot. These longer intermodals are also competing with the longer (now 15000+ feet) mixed freight or unit freight (coal, grain, etc) trains, they seemingly no longer have priority and sometimes sit "in the hole" waiting for another, longer train to pass because the other train wouldn't fit in the siding.
There's a lot of things at play. The bottom line is the railroads COULD take the traffic, but in an effort to be as proffitable as possible, they are cutting crews, running trains way too long.
And, if you think this is bad, the carriers are pushing for 1 man crews, which is going to make it a complete mess out there. I feel bad for railroaders and i'm glad i'm not in the industry anymore
