The State of U.S. Railroads: A Review of Capacity and Performance Data. E-book

The volume of freight transported in the United States is expected to doublein the next 30 years. An increased use of rail freight could allow thesupply chain to accommodate these increased volumes while minimizing highwaycongestion and improving energy efficiency in the transportation sector.Shippers and policymakers are concerned that the existinginfrastructure--much diminished after decades of track abandonment--lackssufficient capacity to accommodate the increased demand for rail freight.This report draws from publicly available data on the U.S. railroad industryto provide observations about rail infrastructure capacity and performancein freight transportation. Railroads have improved their productivity in thepast three decades, mitigating immediate concerns about capacity, butconcerns about future capacity constraints appear to be justified.Insufficient data exist to determine whether rail performance is now stable,significantly declining, or improving. The railroad system is privatelyowned and operated, but there is a public role for easing rail capacityconstraints because private decisions about transportation investment andfreight shipping have public consequences for safety and the environment. Abetter understanding of the public and private cost trade-offs betweenshipping freight by truck and by rail is needed. Improvements to dataquality and freight-modeling tools will improve the ability for policymakersto better target public investment in the rail freight transportationsystem.