> Truck companies avoid this kind of thing because it's expensive to maintain pools of short-haul drivers at either end of the transport link. If you are willing to assume those costs/risks, you can already send freight by rail, which is an order of magnitude more efficient on fuel, and sometimes even a little faster.
Speaking only from the US perspective, I agree with most of this. But there are a couple things you're not taking into account:
1) Delivery variability for rail. While rail is much cheaper in terms of cost per ton mile, good luck getting an accurate estimate of when it will be delivered. Midwest to Pacific Northwest I've seen variability of a week or two for going halfway across the country. If they're delivering to you and are multiple days late, they still expect you to drop whatever else you had planned and get their rail car unloaded on a relatively short turnaround or they start charging fees.
2) Rail requires quite a large scale. Many factories aren't shipping out more than a few semis per day. Getting to enough to fill a couple rail cars would significantly increase the inventory levels.
Speaking only from the US perspective, I agree with most of this. But there are a couple things you're not taking into account:
1) Delivery variability for rail. While rail is much cheaper in terms of cost per ton mile, good luck getting an accurate estimate of when it will be delivered. Midwest to Pacific Northwest I've seen variability of a week or two for going halfway across the country. If they're delivering to you and are multiple days late, they still expect you to drop whatever else you had planned and get their rail car unloaded on a relatively short turnaround or they start charging fees.
2) Rail requires quite a large scale. Many factories aren't shipping out more than a few semis per day. Getting to enough to fill a couple rail cars would significantly increase the inventory levels.