Thread: They do it big over here in the US

Tote, where were those photos taken? Looks like Texas, New Mexico, or Arizona.

Originally Posted by Tote

Whilst we need to invest more in rail population density also has something to do with it. For instance the trains I photographed are on one of the main lines connecting the west coast with the east. The urbanised area of Los Angeles has around 18 million people and this line connects that population with the rest of the country.
There isn't the amount of freight going across the northern line crossing the sierra from San Francisco to Utah.
Compare that with Australia's busiest line linking two cities considerably smaller than the LA metropolitan area (Sydney and Melbourne) and it's hardly a fair comparison.
There's still plenty of road freight in the US, we saw yards full of prime movers at linehaul depots.
Regards,
Tote

There are some enormous trucking businesses in the USA. C.R.England out of Salt Lake claim to be the world's biggest refrigerated carrier. Arkansas Best or ABP have thousands of trucks on the road and run worldwide freight services. Some time ago they took over and swallowed East Texas Motor Freight which had 3,500 line haul rigs in service. York are seen everywhere. I don't recall who took over Roadway but Roadway had thousands of trucks on the road and ordered Road Boss 2's from White in the late 70's by the thousand. Ryder once ordered 8,500 body trucks from GMC and followed through the next year with an order for another 8,000. FedEx and UPS have thousands of those short 20' trailers in service and short doubles are seen everywhere and short triples in the western states.

An enormous amount of rail freight is hauled on the northern main line which pretty much parallels I80 from Chicago. You are correct in saying not much goes into San Francisco. The freight for LA and Port of Long Beach diverts south at Ogden and thence to LA via Salt Lake and Las Vegas. In LA heavy freight trains run on lines down the middle of many streets and share the line from downtown to Long Beach with the light rail passenger service.