Energy Efficiency: Trains and Trucks

“A range of separate studies undertaken in the early 1990s suggested that a rail freight train might typically consume around 0.6 Megajoules per tonne km (MJ/tkm), compared to a range of 1.2 - 8 MJ/tkm for road goods vehicles.”

Source:
http://www.networkrail.co.uk/freight/about/issues/energy.htm

This translates to rail freight being from 2 to 13 times more energy efficient than truck freight.

In short: more trains = less fuel = less dependence on foreign fuel + cleaner environment + less global warming

Maybe Cat Stevens was onto something when he called his song “The Peace Train”.