40 % of US cargo is shipped by train, which is just as large a share as it was 30 or 40 years ago. But then they only allow trucks to carry 36.000 kg on roads, while it's 44.000 kg in the EU and 60.000 kg in Sweden and Finland.

US train freight is ten times as big as EU train freight, measured in ton-kilometres and it's run by profitable, publicly traded private companies.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.

Freight rail has been abandoned a long time ago in France. The SNCF had this very spectacular showoff project, the TGV I think it was called, that was so good at bringing customer traffic, subsidies and buzz, that the company abandoned other aspects of its business, and essentially cut off the hook on its freight train branch, which became a zombie administration, unable to have reasonable scheduling (important in these days of just-in-time transportation). Oh, and trucking is a very strong lobby in France, able to stop the country a couple times every decade.

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères

I think market share has fallen marginally in the last decades, from 21 % to 19 %.

By the way, more useless transportation knowledge: Sweden is the country in the world which is most reliant on the manufacture of heavy trucks, and a fifth of all trucks manufactured today are made by Swedish corporations.

Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.