Railcar economics are as complex as the movement of freight…in the US there are over 1.6mn rail freight cars, but more than 0.9mn are not in use on any given day…
Interesting article that highlights how complex the economics of rail freight is – and although margins are high and operations complex, it is clear that better scheduling – improving computer software – could lead to less redundancy.
http://www.freightwaves.com/news/economics-of-railcars-are-complex
Gert Kamstrup 