Enter your lane, tonnage, and dray, and compare all-truck against rail-plus-transload using public benchmark rates — savings per shipment and per year, your breakeven distance, and the CO₂ difference. Then hand the lane to the transload planner to find the actual terminals.
Defaults: rail ≈ 4.5¢/ton-mi (avg Class-I revenue per ton-mile, AAR/BTS) · truck ≈ 13¢/ton-mi (ATRI 2024 operating cost ≈ 9¢ at 24 tons; paid rates run higher) · transload $8–20/ton published range. Real rates are contracted — treat results as directional.
All-truck
$12,870
Rail + transload
$6,504
Rail saves $6,366 per shipment (49%) — $76,395 per year at 12 shipments.
Each 110-ton move replaces about 5 truckloads on the long haul and avoids ~5.5 metric tons of CO₂.
Breakeven at these rates: ~188 road miles. Rail miles estimated at 975 (rail routes run more circuitous than road).
This is the generic math. The rail transload planner runs it for your actual lane — real terminals near your customer, which railroads reach them single-line, and per-facility savings.
all-truck = miles × tons × truck rate · rail route = rail miles × tons × rail rate + dray × tons × truck rate + fee × tons
Rail wins on the linehaul — about 4.5¢ per ton-mile against 13¢ for truck — and loses at the endpoints: the transload handling fee and the dray from the terminal to the final destination are fixed tolls that distance has to amortize. That's the whole economics of transloading in one sentence, and it's why the breakeven sits around 200–300 road miles for typical bulk moves. Rail miles run about 8% longer than road miles for the same lane because rail routes through hubs.
Short lanes, small annual volumes that never fill a railcar, lanes where the nearest open-access terminal puts the dray at 75+ miles, and freight with delivery windows tighter than rail transit allows. The calculator makes those cases visible instead of hiding them — if all-truck comes out cheaper, that's the answer, and it tells you the distance where rail would start paying.
Benchmark rates get you a direction, not a decision. The rail transload planner runs this same model against real terminals from our directory of 2,000+ transload facilities — which ones sit within dray range of your customer, which your origin railroad reaches single-line, and the per-facility cost. And one railcar is 4–5 truckloads: the railcar capacity calculator shows exactly how many tons your commodity puts in each car type.
Over distance, almost always: average Class-I rail revenue is about 4.5¢ per ton-mile against roughly 13¢ for bulk trucking. But rail adds a transload fee ($8–20/ton) and a dray leg when the receiver isn't rail-served, so on short lanes truck wins. The crossover for typical bulk moves lands around 200–300 road miles.
Average US Class-I rail revenue per ton-mile has run about 4.4–4.6 cents (AAR / BTS National Transportation Statistics). Actual contract rates vary widely by commodity, volume, and lane — bulk unit trains price below single-car moves.
ATRI's 2024 study puts the marginal cost of operating a truck at $2.26 per mile — about 9.4¢ per ton-mile at a 24-ton bulk payload. Shipper-paid rates run above operating cost, so 12–15¢ per ton-mile is a reasonable planning band for bulk freight.
With benchmark rates, a $12/ton transload fee, and a 25-mile dray, the math crosses over around 190–250 road miles. A longer dray, a higher handling fee, or a small shipment pushes the breakeven out; unit-train volumes and rail-served receivers pull it in.
Rail emits roughly 0.021 kg CO₂ per ton-mile versus about 0.081 for trucking — close to a 4× difference on the linehaul. A single 110-ton railcar moving 900 miles instead of going all-truck avoids roughly 5–6 metric tons of CO₂.
The transloaders in our directory run on Rebulk: railcar tracking, BOL and scale ticket capture, and live inventory — so your product is as visible at the terminal as it is in your own yard.
