What are the roles of the US railroads?

Answer 1

In short the role of US railroads is to move goods, particularly bulk goods (i.e., coal, grain, chemicals, etc.) as efficiently and quickly as possible. In this day and age it has become particularly important for two reason: first, pollution levels need to be reduced and nothing is more efficient at moving goods and people per-fuel-mile than railroads; and second, railroads are an excellent alternative to highways which are becoming extremely overcrowded (their growth and traffic density in the past few years has actually been unprecedented since the days of WWII). For an excellent article on our nation's transportation infrastructure please visit this link, http://www.american-rails-forums.com/viewtopic.php?t=406.

Also for more information on US railroads please visit the site below.

http://www.american-rails.com/