Rail Transportation: An Overview

Everything About Freight Transportation

The use of railroads and trains to convey cargo on land is known as rail freight transport. Rail transport is popular, especially in continents with extensive journey durations, such as China, Russia, the United States, and Europe. Freight trains can transport a variety of cargo, including freight containers, automobiles, cattle, grains, coal, minerals, and metals. Bulk goods, standardized shipping containers, or particularly constructed carriages for a specific sort of freight can all be transported by freight trains. Rail freight travels far more quickly than the ocean freight. It costs more than sea freight, but less than air freight. Moving high-value industrial products like automobiles, electronics, and computer equipment, as well as promotional items, by train is ideal.

Benefits of Rail Freight

While we consider energy use, rail freight might be one of the most efficient models of transportation. Six times lower than the road to be precise, especially for transporting goods over vast distances. It makes good economic and environmental sense: freight rails generate roughly 95% lower carbon emissions than airplanes and nearly 80% to 100% lower emissions than comparable road transport. Being environmentally friendly transportation follows the latest trends in modern society, thus rail freight logistics will always be supported. In addition, there are fewer accidents on railroads than on roadways.

Latest Freight Numbers and Trends

In order to demonstrate the significance and exposure of rail freight let’s take a look at the numbers. There are 1.1 million kilometers of train tracks in the world. The United States takes the lion's share of this, accounting for 32 percent. Then there's Asia with 30% and Europe with 24%. Last year's statistics demonstrate that rail freight traffic is increasing globally. In Europe and Turkey alone, commodities traveled 3.1 billion ton-kilometers by rail in 2019. In Asia/Oceania and the Middle East, this figure was about 3.5 billion ton-kilometers. The role of freight transportation has even increased during the pandemic. COVID-19 had a mixed influence on the rail freight business, with regions such as North and South America seeing a fall in rail freight traffic while Asia and Europe witnessed a spike, which is a considerable benefit for our company and the region we operate. The regional share of rail freight is likely to grow significantly in the long run. Along with this, more investment, infrastructure expansion, and technology implementation to digitize rail freight are expected.

 

6 Reasons why Rail Freight Transport is so important right now

Nowadays, road transport is one of the most popular options for freight. However, there are some advantages of rail transport that are impossible to ignore, especially for specific types of cargo. For instance, if the cargo needs to travel a distance of more than 1500 km and does not have a strict expiry period, railways would be the perfect choice for the supply chain.

The advantages of this type of freight transport are:

1. Cost efficiency. it includes load transportation from road to rail and can save up to 30% cost. On top of that rail transport requires lower fuel costs in comparison to road transport, mainly in instances such as high-volume cargo shipment. Rail transport freight is also associated with lower costs when it comes to drivers, as the drivers typically require less time to transport and load the cargo.

2. Next is capacity. In comparison with road transport, which is often not spacious enough, trains are more suitable for transporting large volumes of freight. They are more likely to handle and safely transport cargo of different weights. For instance, one double-stacked train can handle almost the same number of loads that approximately 200+ trucks can handle. This is more cost-efficient and less time-consuming.

3. Railways are reliable. Railways operate on regulated transit timetables and do not share their tracks with the people, as trucks do. As a result, trains are not affected by traffic or weather in the same way that vehicles are.

4. Rail freight can be cost-effective. The typical transit time for various types of goods is comparable to that of road transport. While rail should not be used for time-sensitive shipments, it can deliver transit times that are quite similar for larger hauls.

5. Rail choices provide you access to more capacity. The capacity of the OTR is limited. Shippers may find it difficult to obtain a truck when they need one without spending an arm and a leg because of the driver scarcity, HOS regulations, and current market demand. Rail transport is a wonderful option for shippers to locate capacity because it is more efficient and does not have the same limits as other modes of transportation.

6. Rail as part of an intermodal strategy. Choosing a railway transport mode as a part of intermodal transportation has a lot of advantages, as this type of transportation utilizes two or more options for freight transportation. When road and railway are combined, trains are utilized specifically for the long-distance or large-volume part of the shipment process. When road transportation is used it usually means trucks transferring the freight to the terminal than from the terminal to the destination point, which is considered risky and time-consuming.