It's Not Just People, It's Freight Too!!

Over at Trans Sleuth, Adron discusses the increase in passengers and freight trains in America...

Trucks keep ratcheting up the prices because of labor and fuel and wanting to impose 3 tractor trailer units per truck. Meanwhile BNSF is increasing the train length by the equivalent of almost 240 trucks! Come on America, get this crap straight!! Move it to the rails, get the intermodal really cooking, and get those centers to truly be distribution points! Rock on BNSF, Congrats on a successful 10,000 ft. train move!

This is rather amazing and it shows the efficiency of rail over rubber tired alternatives. I wonder how much benefit we would get from electrifying just this one route which has 10,000 ft trains and using alternative energy. There should be a national study to look at the environmental benefits of such a move as well as a cost-benefit ratio. Has this already been done? Some cold hard numbers always help.