The US is famous for its never ending freight trains and they typically carry stuff that’s used in manufacturing and heavy industry. Coal, metal ores, cement, ethanol etc. Since those trains don’t end up in China, there must still be a sizable industrial network in the US?

29 comments

  3. The US is still the second largest manufacturer and a much bigger share of our industrial capacity is on heavy industry, not consumer goods.

  4. In addition to what other posters have mentioned, those trains are also transporting finished goods (imported & domestic) and agricultural products.

  5. Interesting linkage between train length and industry strength. Others have been specific about the us manufacturing strength, but to speak to the freight cars, coal trains typically go to coal fired energy plants that produce power directly from the fuel, metal ores probably go to steel/aluminum foundries that produce raw materials, and ethonal/oil tankers probably supply fuel needs, (refineries, storage depots, airports, etc), all over the country. Cement either goes directly to building projects, (dams, highways, building sites), or to retail warehouses for resale. Manufacturing probably takes a good chunk of all of those commodities.

  6. I would say it isn’t. We buy almost everything made in the US and many of these companies are growing like crazy and support many communities. People think that because they can’t find TVs made in the US at Walmart for $5 jeans.

  7. The US is still the number 1 or 2 global manufacturer along with China. But it’s a lot more automated than in the past so factories can produce as much with far fewer workers involved.

    But freight trains are also used to transport raw materials and food products that are mined/extracted/harvested/processed; cargo that arrives in ports on all coasts; as well as transporting finished goods from American factories.

  8. My brother works in a factory that builds 400+ cars a shift. It may have declined but it isn’t dead.

  9. We don’t make basic consumer goods anymore really. We make things that need complex engineering and manufacturing experience, and we make a lot of them.

    Cars, construction equipment, aircraft, communications equipment, medical equipment, industrial machinery.

    We make a fuck load of all of it.

  10. 17% of all global manufacturing occurs in the US. It’s certainly higher end manufacturing, but substantial nonetheless. Per capita, it’s the biggest.

    For contrast, China is at 26%.

    Germany is 5.8%. India at 3.3%.

  11. Of course not. The US accounts for 16% of global manufacturing and was only surpassed as no.1 for manufacturing in like 2010.

  12. We still have a very large manufacturing base in this country. It’s just not as substantial as it was 50-60 years ago. For example, a lot of the mill and factory jobs around the Great Lakes region dried up in the 70s and moved to other countries, but they still exist to a good degree. I applied for a job at a steel mill that was being set up here in my own county a few years ago.

  13. There is definitely still manufacturing in US. I work in a factory that makes parts that go into equipment all across the world. And some of the stuff we get is raw material that we then make into a secondary product which then makes our final products. We receive steel, and rubber, and other things from other manufacturing plants. Manufacturing in this country is not like what it used to be before they allowed our companies to be shipped overseas so that things could be made much cheaper and not as regulated. But it’s still here.

  14. A lot of what is transported by rail is containerized freight that’s loaded at seaports (i.e. stuff that’s manufactured in other countries). Coal is another big commodity shipped by rail, but when used by electric plants that isn’t manufacturing. Many cars manufactured in Mexico or Canada are shipped by rail into the US on autoracks. The list goes on and on.

    That being said, the US doesn’t do much non-food manufacturing that has a low value add. We’ve largely outsourced that to other countries.

  15. FedEx and UPS also move packages by rail. It can be better to load a bunch of containers on a train than to send a bunch of trucks with individual trailers.

  16. I live in the middle of nowhere and I mean literally no where and I can think of at least 5 gigantic manufacturing places within a 30 mile radius of me

  17. While jobs in manufacturing have been declining for decades, manufacturing in the US [is more productive than ever](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/AMTMNO).

    One of the biggest political misconceptions of all time is that American manufacturing in any way decreased due to NAFTA and international trade. It didn’t, and it continues to grow dramatically. Trade and manufacturing aren’t a finite value, where if a job is now done in Vietnam it means less manufacturing in America. In fact, the opposite is usually true, as we are also getting more and more global consumers for US products due to money made by previous outsourcing in those countries.

    The only reason bet jobs are being lost in manufacturing is because of automation. It doesn’t require teams of people to do the same things anymore: now there are machines that can do what used to take 100 people.

  19. The US is a major manufacturing powerhouse. Anyone who tells you that American factories aren’t producing more than ever before is lying.

  20. No its not dead. Mill towns are. But freight is moving like crazy and right now crazy cheap. So don’t let a store tell you SC issues is why shitt is expensive

  21. The US still manufactures a good bit of things but from someone who lives in the rust belt it’s really just more of a shift from raw manufacturing to tech innovation in the areas deemed “rust belt”. My home town is outside of Pittsburgh and my dad made a shit ton of money working for the steel industry, just like his father, and immigrant grandfather. He even did some extra work for the Volkswagen assembly plant between quitting to accept an offer for another steel mill. Business was mostly manufacturing and assembly based… up until he lost his job like countless others. He couldn’t find anything and worked as a grocery store clerk until he got accepted to a work assistance program at precisely the right time. He became a draftsman, and eventually a mechanical engineer, full circle to the point where now he was designing equipment for the very mills he worked in and was laid off from. Made a hell of a living doing it and the world abroad benefitted from a good portion of his work.

    Fast forward to a young kid (me). Jobs were going away, so I thought. The times of steel industry were behind us and I had to abandon ship or become a “hometown hero” so I made the worst decision an 18yr old can make, joined the army. Got a very good basis for me education, earned a GI bill, went on to become an electrical engineer and found out, there are still a lot of opportunities in my home town. Pittsburgh is an amazing place for technology and healthcare (and many other things). There are so many opportunities for tech jobs and healthcare jobs here and it has been one of America’s most livable cities for a long time despite being one of the places deemed part of the “rust belt”

    Regardless it’s a shift. The steel industry went away for the most part due to automation but new things came from it.

  22. We still do the overweening majority of our own high end manufacturing needs. It’s really only the low end, low input cost stuff we’ve exported over seas. Our total manufacturing capacity, output wise, complexity, and quality is far superior to our capacity in the past.

  23. We make cars and trucks still in the US as well as trains and planes. Basically anything that is large and heavy is still made here, but smaller things like electronics, textiles and other consumer goods are manufactured in China.

  26. Just because we don’t make consumer electronics or appliances doesn’t mean manufacturing is dead.

    Manufacturers in the United States account for 11.39% of the total output in the economy, employing more 8.51% of the workforce and $2.3 trillion dollars of goods.

    We’re still the third largest manufacturing economy behind China and the EU.

    Also, those trains are used to distribute goods regardless of where they’re manufactured.

  27. Lots of those Freight trains are carrying oil coal corn wheat Lumber etc. We are number one in oil and food production.

    Also we still manufacture airplanes, locomotives, cars, and heavy equipment like tractors.

  29. Definitely not. When people say “manufacturing is dead” they’re mostly talking about employment or consumer goods where the most people are exposed to it. Between automation and manufacturing becoming a smaller share of our GDP it doesn’t dominate employment for whole cities like it once did and our manufacturing has shifted more towards heavy industry and final assembly of durable goods like cars than retail goods.

    The absolute amount of things we manufacture is still increasing, just nowhere near as fast as the value of services in the goods/services balance.

    IIRC were still the second largest manufacturer in the world by value, behind only china despite the population disparity.

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