How Freight Trains Connect the World

Animation by Josh Sherrington
Thumbnail by Simon Buckmaster

Special thanks to Patreon supporters Alec M Watson, Andrew J Thom, Arkadiy Kulev, Chris Allen, Chris Barker, Connor J Smith, Daddy Donald, Etienne Dechamps, Eyal Matsliah, Hank Green, Harrison Wiener, James Hughes, James McIntosh, John & Becki Johnston, Keith Bopp, Kelly J Knight, Ken Lee, Kyle, KyQuan Phong, Manoj Kasyap Govindaraju, MyNameIsKir, Plinio Correa, Qui Le, Sheldon Zhao, Simen Nerleir, and Tim Robinson

Select footage courtesy the AP Archive

BNSF train clip courtesy Scott Hiddelston

References

[MediumDSpeaks]

He's moved on from planes to trains, boys

[CEO_Of_Racism-fkqv]

Transport : EXISTS
Wendover : imma nut

[leanneland]

I live in Canada and when you see a freight train coming through a rail crossing, you put your car in park. They’re long. 🤦🏼‍♀️

[JamieOleszynski]

Me: it’s midnight and I should sleep
YouTube: TRAINS PLANES AND AUTOMOBILES BABY

[newmono]

Trains? I think you mean *ground planes*

[beanbagbear]

Really must appreciate the effort to include both metric and imperial units in the video....!! U're awesome Sam!!!

[Sam]

Thank you for including both miles and kilometers. The most annoying thing is having to pause a video to do a math conversion.

[silviaromano]

Amtrak: ok so I'm going to build some passenger railway.
America: we don't do that here.

[adamandracheloconnor]

Wow, that's a ton of freight for just four cents!

[rylandouglas]

One of the few educational youtube channel with citations. This goes underappreciated :(

[MIO_sh]

meanwhile in japan:
JR: "Tracks for passengers and freights are both mine"

[trapical]

7:03 Every single railroad company intersects at Chicago.
That’s one impressive transport hub, I can’t even imagine the city planning needed and logistics of that.

[BrianAlex]

I find it interesting that this so reversed between Europe and the US. I once read a statement along the lines of "In the United States, cars move people and trains move freight, while in Europe, trains move people and trucks move freight." This is of course massively simplified, but there is some truth to it. Passenger rail is scarce in the US while there are few freight trains in Europe (which are apparently also a lot shorter). This might have to do with good passenger rail infrastructure in Europe that makes those trains, which are a higher priority, occupy the tracks. And high speed rail lines are in most cases not even allowed to be used by freight trains.

[ihavetowaitdaystochangem]

*Its time for Thomas to leave, he had seen everything*

[scwt]

You pronounced both "Wenatchee" and "Spokane" perfectly. As a resident of eastern Washington, I'm impressed.

[meme-xnwr]

Finally someone else who respects American freight trains, that’s my dream job, is operating them.

[modernkennnern]

Relationship ended with Planes.
Now trains are Wendover's best friend

[KrazyKaiser]

We've learned about Planes and Automobiles, now we finally get to learn about Trains. the classic P, T, and A

[rexappleby]

It's amazing how cheap and fuel efficient they are.

[ian]

There's an idiot driver swerving to exit at 8:32.