History is a wonderful subject. We rarely learn from the mistakes of previous generations and we tend to keep reinventing the wheel. So-called new ideas are often a reincarnation of what happened many years previously. But we can take these so-called old ideas and adapt them to current day situations. That is what has been happening at Norfolk Southern Railway (NS) in the United States. In July, NS launched a door-to-door service for small-lot-freight between Chicago and Miami. Trucks pick up small loads and deliver them to a rail-served warehouse where the shipments are loaded into boxcars. The boxcars then move by intermodal trains to the destination and are delivered to the customer by truck. This is a familiar pattern and the model involving rail in New Zealand has been used for over 60 years. Should KiwiRail also consider getting back into this market?
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