What is the Carbon Footprint of A truck pulling a 45ft Trailer?

How do you think the frieght gets to the TRAIN, THINK before you post

 

Nothing wrong with "tree huggers" or being environmentally conscience, except , when it is taken to extremes. Like this initial post, for example, Worrying about the carbon footprint ..... WTF Just ship it ! And then think how much you just reduced the carbon footprint of your efforts to reduce carbon footprints?!?!? ie less phone usage , less lighting, less consumption of energy on the other end that is still trying to figure out if what you are asking is actually a joke or not.

 

Yeah, I know how the freight gets TO the train, Shade. But how does the freight move from New York to San Fran? Right now it's mainly by 18 wheels and diesel.

However, it is known (at least by some of us) that trucking the freight is very inefficient. Investments have to be made in infrastructure (highway construction and repairs), truckstops have to be built, the public has to endure spillover costs (dirtier air and truck crashes), consumables have to be produced (such as rubber tires), etc, etc, ETC.

I think someone has claimed that railing the freight is 10x more efficient. Don't know what that means, exactly, so I'll leave it up to you to research it. I do know that a rig loaded to 79,500 will get about 6.5 miles per gallon. A train loaded with 7,900,000 may get two gallons per mile. Sounds like the train is the way to go, especially with cheap diesel being only a dream now.

And then there are the idling trucks. One truck overnight will consume probably 10 gallons of green juice. Most of that is converted to heat and noxious fumes. Multiply the 10 gallons by the number of rigs that idle overnight across the US of A and Canada and you see the angle that will be attacked by the green wave first.

Getting the freight to trains requires simple day cab trucks that don't have to sit overnight idling in truckstops. Trains can take it from there more cheaply and more cleanly, and they don't have to idle in yards for hours on end each and every night.

 

All of that is true for the most part but one thing that wasnt mentioned is the length of time that it takes for that one load to get to the gay bay by train.

on average if you put a load on the train and you loaded 1 truck a day for a week the last truck you loaded would make it there before the load on the train got there.

 

I think JIT delivery is gonna have to adapt warehousing when the trains really get rolling. This is because trains don't get freight to destinations nearly as fast as trucks can, meaning customers will have to go back to keeping inventory sitting around idle in warehouses. What died in the 80s and 90s will be resurrected in the two-thousand teens, at least for freight that doesn't require temperature control. Yeah, I think warehousing will make a comeback in the years ahead. It's a good sector to invest in is what I'm saying.

Trains are coming, guys. Like it or not. Warren Buffet didn't drop all the mulla into the rails only to see it not make a handsome return. He KNOWS it's gonna make a return. And it will be handsome.

 

Go train! Go Government subsidized!?!?!?!? Yay Hooo! Let me know how that works out for less carbon foot print, let alone efficiency .

As far as less as less trucks, think more. I know this may blow / bewilder your bark invested mind, but , none the less, stick with me ( like the all curing leach, you tree huggers love!)

1 Train equals about 99.735 big trucks.
Which equals 397 short trucks............Yeah thats a positive impact? !?!?!?!

Tree huggers at large!!!! Watch out they are gonna save us by more trucks!!!!



(smaller more inefficient, plus more of them, oh my the evil 18 wheeler better watch out, and by the way Al Gore is dead duck)

 

You better believe the future is the rails. Already there are 24-hour traffic jams in places like L.A. Also, your favorite daddy bush is calling for a big reduction in gasoline consumption in the next decade. This includes diesel, in case you didn't get his hint. A train moving its load of freight is much more efficient than that 99 trucks you mentioned moving the same freight. The friction between a train wheel and a track in nearly zero. What is the friction coefficient between a rubber tire and asphalt?

Trains just make more sense, given the trend towards "green". And given a lot of government folks will make ill-informed, knee-jerk reactions regarding the environment in the years ahead, I think trucking's OTR, TL segment is as good as dead. Sure, things like on-board generators and mandatory teaming may stave off its death for a few more years, but eventually it'll go the way of the do-do bird. OTR is clearly not the most cost-effective way to move freight, especially with cheap oil already going the way of that same do-do bird. I predict eight more years. It's probably gonna be turned on its head in only five.

There are two rules in the world you have to live by if you wanna keep living:
1. No changes are permanent, but change itself is permanent. Things are fluid and always change.
2. The only "sure thing" in the world is the fact there is no such thing as a "sure thing".

 

Aprapos of almost nothing whatsoever, but I just was reading the news and saw that a train derailed and dumped the booster engines for the space shuttle a few hours ago. Maybe they aren't quite the mode of transportation of the future that they are made out to be.....

 

I too believe there is future "in" the rails, I think they are more efficient and faster but there is just no way you can put the amount of freight that is going OTR onto the rail, there is just not enough rail lines or rail cars for that matter to get it done. I also dont believe that by 2015 or whatever the rails will be even halfway close to handling all the freight loads available

 

Burky, I read about those shuttle casings going off the tracks right before I came here and read your post. Those things happen, I guess.

But I also know of the train that just derailed and exploded out by Oakland, caused a flyover to collapse from its heat, and has caused a new traffic chokepoint for us all to enjoy.

I also heard that last year a Crete train hit a car and killed seven kids.

You're right, and I'm sure these train wrecks will convince people to love rigs. Especially those like Hillary Clinton, a person who may soon be your ruler. Hillary loves trucks, and I know she wants to love them even more.