Why doesn’t this country redevelop our railway system and rid our highways of expensive tractor trailer shippi?

they have them in place now and if one looks the trains are longer and fuller with products but cant take product across town and really couldnt have a train full of stuff just sitting waiting on one to unload at walmarts or kmart unless we get rid of a few streets and cars

So you want trains to be able to travel right alongside of every road? Around every city block? because that is what it would take to be able to rid ourselves of tractor trailers.

And do you know how much that would cost?

You still need trucks to get the goods from the trains to the stores.

That will happen when they can figure out how to drive the train from store to store.And most country’s cities aren’t spread out like ours.No trucks,nothing delivered.

Most tractor-trailer shipment is for 700 miles or less, as an average, with the higher percentage of time and distance being spent on a train or a container ship.

What this has produced is no need for warehousing and a large delivery system in place, allowing for more economical “just in time” inventory models.

Sadly, the highway rigs are here to stay. For awhile.

All the above is true but for container load going to a single destination it may be faster by semi than by train. A ship docks in Long Beach (where the goods we used to manufacture now arrive in the US in containers from China) with a container for Cleveland , the container loaded on a semi will go directly there subject to traffic laws and time the trucker is allowed to drive in a day. By train the container may be routed through various rail yards and sit until a train is made up moving in the desired direction maybe straight through maybe numerous yards thus taking longer to arrive. I believe I heard that because of this freight on a train move a an average speed of 15 miles per hour but because of quantity trains would be more competitive with trucks if they could boost the speed to 20 miles per hour. When you see a train moving down the tracks this seems strange but look at a rail yard and see all the cars sitting still.

If anything the US needs to put more into PASSENGER railroads.

I can answer that withn one word . . . $$$$$$$

The trucking industry has one of the most powerful lobbies in the nation.
For short distance moves of roughly 200 miles or less, trucks make sens of course but for longer distances, truck/rail combinations only make sense.
Trucks pay on average 70% of the actual road damage they uncur to our roadways, the rest is a subsidy.
Railroads not only pay to maintain and upgrade their tracks, they pay property taxes on every mile of line.
Not only is fuel saved, think of the emissions from all the extra fuel burned.
And lives, far fewer traffic deaths associated with rail traffic than moving the freight over the highways.
Land use, a double track railroad uses far less space than a 6 lane interstate highway and is actually capable of moving MORE freight.
There is not one good reason not to, except the deep pickets of the trucking industry and all their friends in government.