OTR drivers are on the short list.

Point is, if it happens, it will not be anywhere near as fast as anyone thinks.

 

Not going to happen.

 

The way my railroad buddies frame it.

There should be zero long distance trucking, it should all be regional.

Trains have been around longer / infrastructure is better, and one train can haul hundreds of semi trucks worth of cargo.

Which i agree, have trucks run regional and trains run coast to coast.

They also clown on truckers who cry "with out trucks the country would stop" or "if you dont like trucks quit shopping"

 

Ask your railroad friends how much lettuce, strawberries or other sensitive produce they move from the west coast to the east coast. Railroads can't compete on time critical service. Never have been able to and never will.

 

Good points. At some point we may be like the dairy farmers of the 1960s stacking up government cheese in a cave in Missouri or getting paid to pour milk down the drain because society hasn't figured out what to do with a population it doesn't need to do work. I think the future could be bright with AI and digital currency, but it's probably gonna be a dark transition while we figure it out.

 

That begs the question though, why is that theory so far from the reality, where trucks haul two or three times as much freight as trains, despite having had +100 years to make that happen?

 

I remember 40 years ago, it was predicted that O/Os and OTR trucking would soon be a thing of the past.

 

railroads used to carry 38% of all freight. Now they carry 20% of all freight. I promise shippers and receivers aren't deciding if their freight moves by rail or road based on sentimental reasons, but economic reasons. Govts at various levels have made building anything more complicated and expensive than ever before and that leaves trucks as the last method standing and the most flexible method. The people that want problems solved by experts sitting in a room and making decisions for everyone are the problem. They and the experts have far less information than all the customers combined and therefore are destined to reach the wrong decision than ones with more information.

 

Cost is the primary driver of decisions like this, and so long as it’s cheaper to move things in OTR, they will be moved OTR.

 

Still need to get that load of strawberries or fresh yard bird from Plant City Fl to Omaha or that bird From Dalton Ga to LA.