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Rail freight transport is the use of railways and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers. A freight train , cargo train, or goods train is a group of freight cars (US) or goods wagons ( International Union of Railways ) hauled by one or more locomotives on a railway, transporting cargo all or some of the way between the ...
Freight transportation continued to labor under regulations developed when rail transport had a monopoly on intercity traffic, and railroads only competed with one another. An entire generation of rail managers had been trained to operate under this regulatory regime. Labor unions and their work rules were likewise a formidable barrier to change.
The safety of rail freight transport has become an area of focus at the FRA, particularly as the industry uses longer trains. Over the past decade, the FRA reported significant improvements in rail safety because of the railroad industry's investments in infrastructure, technology, and training.
Rail freight has a major national bottleneck in Chicago and the Midwest, representing approximately one-third of the nation's freight trains pass through the region, [47] which is the subject of an ongoing $4.6 billion infrastructure improvement project which started in 2003.
Congress passed the Regional Rail Reorganization Act of 1973 (sometimes called the "3R Act") to salvage viable freight operations from the bankrupt Penn Central and other lines in the northeast, mid-Atlantic and midwestern regions, through the creation of the Consolidated Rail Corporation (ConRail), a government-owned corporation. [85]
Due to these benefits, rail transport is a major form of passenger and freight transport in many countries. [74] It is ubiquitous in Europe, with an integrated network covering virtually the whole continent. In India, China, South Korea and Japan, many millions use trains as regular transport.
The term landbridge or land bridge is commonly used in the intermodal freight transport sector. When a containerized ocean freight shipment travels across a large body of land for a significant distance, that portion of the trip is referred to as the "land bridge" and the mode of transport used is rail transport. There are three applications ...
Rail transport operations are the day-to-day operations of a railway. A railway has two major components: the infrastructure (the permanent way , tracks, stations, freight facilities, viaducts, tunnels, etc.) and the rolling stock (the passenger coaches , locomotives, freight cars , etc.)