Commercial railways have been around for 200 years in America. And for most of that time, they represented a low cost, high speed and reliable way to haul large tonnages of freight across a very wide country. As private passenger cars and air travel drove passengers away from rail service, freight took up the slack and railways remained unchallenged on a cost per ton mile basis for many kinds of freight up to the present. But a new generation of self-driving diesel and electric trucks may drive the metaphorical nail into the coffin of the American railway industry.

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