Well, we may find a hyperloop is better for transporting the smaller pieces of a commodity. After all, if you can just send a crate instead of a container, you can send to the buyer exactly what they need and nothing more. The issue with bulk freight is once you've made the pellets, at some point they have to be divided up.
I think something like a hyperloop will do very well for less-than-carload/container freight, but would probably never transport the massive volumes of bulk products (chemicals, wood, oil, coal, ore, steel coils, etc.)
Railroads lost 99.9% of that business 70-100 years ago.
You ship stuff that doesn't have time-definite requirements with UPS Ground or Parcel Post. Time definite, you use an express service. If you have time definate needs and larger quantities, you use FedEx Custom Critical, or some LTL truck service.
Some folks today ship same-day parcel shipments via Amtrak, Southwest Airlines, or other passenger service. That's what hyperloop parcel delivery would compete with. It's onerous and expensive (ie. I need a guy to drive to the station with the thing I need to ship), and only makes sense if you have an office adjacent to the city pairs or airport. Lawyers used this service alot pre-internet.
Trucks powered by internal combustion engines? It's not an all-or-nothing thing; many products even today have a rail segment somewhere in their delivery to the consumer. Even so, for rail to grow much it has to take business from trucking.
There wasn't much in roads or trucks for long distance travel in the early 1900s. I believe it took roughly 30 days to do the trip across the country on the Lincoln Highway as opposed to 7 days via the train.
I would expect if you look at the volume of freight shipped via rail vs trucks it wouldn't be until the 1950s and the creation of the interstate system that it really took off. Containerization in the 50s and 60s would be another big boon to trucking.
>I think something like a hyperloop will do very well for less-than-carload/container freight, but would probably never transport the massive volumes of bulk products (chemicals, wood, oil, coal, ore, steel coils, etc.)
Exactly. The hyperloop network would probably cost much more due to the extensive passenger safety features that need to be (hopefully) built into it
I think something like a hyperloop will do very well for less-than-carload/container freight, but would probably never transport the massive volumes of bulk products (chemicals, wood, oil, coal, ore, steel coils, etc.)