(The Associated Press circulated the following on May 29.)
Some facts about the U.S. rail freight system:
— The first North American railroad was chartered by Baltimore merchants in 1827. The golden age of railroads began around 1865, when there was about 35,000 miles of track. It peaked in 1916 at 250,000 miles.
— As the trucking industry boomed in the 1950s, there was a rash of bankruptcies in the railway industry, lasting into the 1970s. Deregulation in the 1980s forced scores of mergers and helped bring the industry back.
— Today, trains move more than 2 billion tons of freight a year on 140,000 miles of track, nearly all of it privately owned and maintained.
— Coal accounts for more than 40 percent of all freight transported by train.
— In 1929, the average freight train had around 50 cars, with about 800 tons of freight. Trains now are far more efficient. An average train has about 70 cars and carries more than 3,000 tons of freight.
— Railway companies employ nearly 200,000 people; the average salary is around $70,000.
— Texas has the largest number of rail freight workers, about 17,000, followed by Illinois, which employs about 13,000; Nebraska is third, with around 11,000 (according to 2005 figures).
— Nine companies account for more than 90 percent of all North American railway revenue, or more than $50 billion. The five largest are Union Pacific Railroad, BNSF Railway, Norfolk Southern, CSX Transportation and Canadian National Railway.