[instarx]

Not aero and perhaps off-topic, but here is an idea for anyone out there with venture capital enough to make trucking more efficient.

Load tractor-trailers onto special rail cars and carry them cross-country by rail. The trains can travel 24-hours a day and can get the truck coast to coast in less time than it would take to drive, and for MUCH less fuel (not to mention wear and tear on the trucks). When the truck gets to a destination near where its load is to be delivered it drives off the train and delivers locally. It picks up another local load and then gets on another train going to the next destination. Drivers can hang out, eat and sleep in special passenger cars of the train and arrive alert, awake and with fatter wallets. This would also save huge amounts of fuel which is good for the country.

Doing this would preserve the benefit of trucks to deliver door to door and also leverage the benefits of trains in long-distance efficiency. It would keep independent truckers in business, put more money in their pockets, benefit the railroads, and save millions of gallons of fuel.

The drive-on/drive-off train and terminal systems would be essentially the same as those being used in the Channel Tunnel where all truck traffic is driven onto trains in England to pass through the tunnel and then driven off in France (and vice versa). So it wouldn't even require designing totally new systems. All the hardware is already designed and proven to work.