And many shippers will absolutely not use rail freight for a variety of reasons in the USA, including slow delivery time (can't ship produce and other perishables easily), lackluster quality of service from the rail lines (they want coal, oil, large commodity business, not smaller firms), higher chance of damage; as well as not meeting minimum qty/volume for it to be worth it.
As for speed, it's interesting to compare trucks with slow steaming.
> Slow steaming refers to the practice of operating transoceanic cargo ships, especially container ships, at significantly less than their maximum speed. An analyst at National Ports and Waterways Institute stated in 2010 that nearly all global shipping lines were using slow steaming to save money on fuel.
That is Federal but there are many exemptions, especially in the western states. For instance, Rocky Mountain doubles can go to 120,000 and certain other combinations even more.
And many shippers will absolutely not use rail freight for a variety of reasons in the USA, including slow delivery time (can't ship produce and other perishables easily), lackluster quality of service from the rail lines (they want coal, oil, large commodity business, not smaller firms), higher chance of damage; as well as not meeting minimum qty/volume for it to be worth it.