I bought a cellphone and it came to NC from Korea in 1 day. Stopped in Anchorage on the way. I also bought a laptop and it got here in 1 day from China. Both cases were free shipping.
A friend moved to Sweden for a few years and she drove her car to Norfolk so it would be loaded in a container with all the rest of the stuff like furniture.
As I understand it, the cost hierarchy (from cheapest to most expensive) goes like this:
There are lots of subdivisions within that (like unit trains are cheaper than container trains which are cheaper than basic trains), and now a lot of transport is inter-modal (like a container on a ship across the Pacific, then loaded onto a train to cross the USA, then loaded onto a truck to deliver to the local business).
And this relates only to the actual cost of transport. Many times, other things like speedy delivery or delicate handling are more important than the basic transport cost.
Not what the OP was asking about, but I have long found interesting the development of canals and railroads in Europe and the US. Not coincidental that the vast majority of towns were within ready access of navigable waterways.
I remember reading things like prior to the 1800s it was cheaper to sail goods from Europe to America, than to cart them overland the final 10 miles or so.
when US railroads built towns they were located on one side of the tracks at first. That’s where the phrase “other side of the tracks” came from because the people on that side were usually criminals and other people who caused trouble.
It’s worth noting that the taxes paid by trucks barely begin to cover the cost of their share of the damage to the roads. Damage to the pavement scales with the fourth power of axle load, so an axle on an 80,000-pound truck (compared to my 4000-pound car) does about 6200 times as much damage as my car. Plus the big-rig has twice as many 4-wheel axles as my car. So the truck does over 12,000 times as much damage to the road, but is only paying about 5 times as much as me in fuel taxes.
IOW, the true cost of shipping goods by truck is considerably higher than what is paid directly by the consumer.
I’d be curious to see how much is spent on keeping harbors, ports, and rivers navigable, on a per-ton basis.
Many of the railroads, especially in the western USA, were subsidized by the government, in the form of land grants to the railroad. Where they built a railroad, they got ownership of alternating parts of the land along the tracks. For example, build 10 miles of track, the builders were granted a 5-mile square section on the right side of the track, then a similar section on the left side of the next part of the track, etc. So they ended up owning 50% of the land adjacent to the tracks, on alternating sides. Thus the railroad had a real incentive to plot out the town on their side of the tracks, and then sell those plots to businesses & homeowners. Leaving the other (non-owned) side of the tracks to the poor & criminals, with no plotted streets or utilities, questionable property deeds, etc. And you can still see that reflected in many towns today.
Unless you have a specific example you can give me, I think you (or someone) have invented a theory to support folk etymology.
Remember that the land the railroads went through had already been divided into townships and sections before the tracks were surveyed. It would have been very rare for a railroad to lie right on the section line for very far.
The most common land grants were alternating sections in any townships they passed through. Naturally, any towns the railroads established would be put on land they owned—and they would own all of that section.
No, “wrong side of the tracks” is more because such towns commonly developed a business district perpendicular to the tracks, leading away from the depot. On the “wrong side of the tracks,” cheaper land over time became home to railroad service facilities, storage tracks, lumberyards, and the like.
Yes but it doesn’t cost 12,000x as much to engineer a road for heavy truck traffic versus cars. Also, roads that only allow car traffic still deteriorate due to factors other than weight, such as weather. Beyond that, much of the cost of roads and highways is due not so much to damage but accommodating more lanes, signals, overpasses, drainage, plowing, and policing. There’s very few places where those things are driven (heh) by trucks as opposed to cars. So while I’m totally in agreement that trucking is highly subsidized, especially compared to railroads (which still need to pay property taxes on much of their track and right-of-way), it’s not quite as lopsided as the 4th power of axle weight argument makes it seem.
as strange as it sounds the word average comes from French for “damage by water”
There was general average which was insurance when you shipped by water. If the ship was on trouble they would start tossing cargo overboard - damaged by water. Everybody paid a little bit to insure the cargo so the shipper who lost their cargo overboard got paid back.
From the web:
Thus, when for the safety of a ship in distress any destruction of property is incurred, either by cutting away the masts, throwing goods overboard, or in other ways, all persons who have goods on board or property in the ship (or the insurers) contribute to the loss according to their average, that is, according to the proportionate value of the goods of each on board
In the UK trucks are not only taxed but there are strict regulations on design which helps to mitigate the damage they do. Not only to the road but to the adjacent buildings.
The regulations dictate the number of axles and the type of suspension. To run at the 44 tonne maximum requires six axles and air suspension. The extra axles and wheels spread the load over a larger are reducing damage to the road surface.
I think everywhere has those regs. Doesn’t stop the damage though.
Not the impression I get from the videos I see. A typical semi-trailer in the US has two axles and steel cart springs.