[Big Dave]

I used to work for CSX and have an (expired) engineer's card. The numbers are completely valid, for reasons everyone has touched on: engines run at optimum bsfc, surprisingly low aero resistance, gentle grades (rarely over 2%), extremely low rolling resistance, etc

A train usually coasts most of the distance of a leg. I ran a westbound train out of Washington, Indiana. Fifteen miles west, I topped the "ruling grade" at 30 MPH and coasted all the way to Cone Yard in East St. Louis where I had to get on the brakes. All the way across Illinois coasting. Is that a hypermiler's dream or what? I'd occasionally have to rev up the engines to compress air to keep the air brakes from dragging.

The US had some straight electrics at one time - mostly in hilly terrain. The Pennsylvania Railroad's mainline west of Altoona to Pittsburgh was electrified until the early 1970s. A division of the N&W in southern WV was electrified. The only things preventing a comeback are the high capital cost ($10 million a mile) and doubt as to where you'd get all that electricity. Yes, electric railroad dispatchers would hold a train at the top of a hill unti another train started up. Then he'd release the downhill train. The downhill train would go into regen braking and feed the power into the catenary and provide 85% of the power needed for the uphill train. By electrifying mainline operations the US would eliminate a quarter million barrels a day of oil consumption.

Straight electrification technology could be applied to truck lanes on Interstate highways.