Rail vs Trucking

Freight rail serves a unique and integral role in the transportation network.  Trains have many advantages over trucks for transporting materials and while most of the benefits are well-known others are less obvious.

It’s estimated that on average, trains are about three times more fuel-efficient.  It takes trucks about three times more diesel fuel to get from one location to another.  Trucks are a much worse contributor to greenhouse gas since a gallon of burned fuel results in nearly twenty pounds of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere.  

Costs also accrue because roads become congested.  It has been stated that economic productivity suffers at least $100 billion a year due to clogged freeways.  Reducing the number of trucks on the road would alleviated sources of traffic jams.  

Highway repairs are largely required because of the presence of trucks that travel them nearly twenty-four hours a day.  Approximately 95% of all wear down on roads come from the impact of tractor-trailers; one 80,000 lbs truck creates same damaged as nearly 10,000 cars.  Railroad tracks require upkeep, but in contrast to trucks, railroads themselves pay the full cost of maintaining infrastructure.  

A third of accidents on highways that end in fatalities involve trucks.  In 2010 nearly 33,000 people died in a motor vehicle accidents.  From 1999-2010 an average of 600 deaths per year were associated with railroad traffic.  

There are advantages to truck transports.  Trains to do not work effectively at small scale and trucks enable faster delivery, but for shippers who have a large volumes of freight that must travel over long distances railroads offer benefits that far outweigh trucks.

Lansdale Warehouse has two locations which can facilitate inbound rail shipments.  The partnerships that we’ve created with rail carriers over the years allows us to help customers work closely with railroads to expedite shipments and trace hot railcars.