[cripplecreek]

Water transport is still the cheapest per ton mile.

Followed by rail.

The artist conception shows single containers being moved and that can't be as economical as a train hauling hundreds of containers at the same time. Claiming that they'll be able to move them at 60 mph doesn't impress me much either. Aside from raw food, very little freight is that time sensitive.

[Spktyr]

Believe it or not, I know some of the guys behind this thing.

The conception is correct, but the idea is that unlike a conventional train which either must stop at every station along the way if only to unload one container or it stops at very distant depots requiring the containers to then be trucked back to whereever from the depot, the system would automatically route containers to the nearest station for someone to haul away. Said stations could be relatively small and one could be in every town along the route. Alternately, if an outfit like FedEx or UPS or USPS (something like a third of I-35 traffic is trucks hauling mail and packages) wants, they can have branch lines run to their facilities easily and cheaply compared to conventional rail.

The last version of the proposal I saw had the tractor on the rail car with the trailer. This meant that the truck could drive away with its load as soon as it got to the station.

[SaraJohnson]

It would be nice to get the trucks out of traffic.