Just a few weeks ago I had to do a comparison to get approximately 60 truck loads of product from West Michigan to Memphis. The price was practically the same but it took 2 weeks longer to go by rail and we still needed a local carrier to truck the product from the train station to the final destinations. The carbon footprint was better but the timing was a deal breaker.

The reason for this is there is no investment in railways anymore it all goes into oil the roads and cars, if a fraction of what was spent buying a car mantaining the roads fixing your car and filling up with gas you would have an amazing transport system, im sure with current technology goods can be transported just as quickly or quicker by train than by lorrys.

America could have an extremely effecient cheap public transport system covering the U.S, people in very rural areas would still need thier own transport but it would be easy to setup regular bus routes within citys and to nearby citys, and with trains covering transport across larger distances, its not difficult to take a decent chunk out of oil use....