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It doesn't take a train a whole week either, which is why it was a story. An example. You understand that, right?
Trains typically take three days to cross the country with freight as well. So let's go ahead and double the original statistics.
Trucks: 104 containers per year
Trains: 10400 containers per year.
You're not making your case, but you are continuing to prove mine. Sorry, but I'd love to see your trucking business go belly up.
ETA: the statistics get even better when you consider that many trains can double stack containers.
I was neither trying to prove nor disprove anything with that post, other than the fact that you have no clue about anything that has anything to do with trucking.
BTW - it's the containers that determine if they can be double-stacked, not the trains. ("many trains can..")
Yes, that is what I'm saying. There are plenty of natural products manufactured in California, and if there is a high demand for Burt's Bees there, then they can set up a local place to manufacture their products. I know it's kind of a crazy concept, but it seems like it should be in line with Republicans' supply/demand mindset. Just for the record, I'd consider food or products coming from within 150 miles or so to be local. Closer, if possible.
If a semi-trailer loaded with 30 tons of Burt's Bees delivers it to a few stores, then it actually saves fuel, rather then hundreds of individual cars driving to the manufacturer to purchase the product. A few semi-trucks driving cross country to bring the product to stores, saves more fuel then building new manufacturing plants, not to mention all the commuting to and from work for those employees and customers, not to mention the electricity and manpower consumed by dozens of Burt's Bees manufacturing plants.
I truly admire that you have made your lifestyle so self-sufficient. It's just that not everyone can. If people live in the desert, food has to be transported in. There are numerous places where food has to be shipped in, where there simply isn't enough fertile land to provide adequate food for the population year-round. And there are other necessities as well that have to be transported in. What you are doing for yourself is exemplary, and people would do well to emulate your lifestyle, but we have to understand that we need a balance between economic independence, and the complex web that makes up commerce and trade.
One can't grow food in the desert? I didn't know that. I will have to inform all of Israel and all of the people in the southwest of U.S.A. that they can't grow any food.
What raw materials are their products made from, and where do they get them? How are they going to be delivered to these factories you'd like to see built all over the country? Why should these companies build hundreds of factories to create the same number of products (or even fewer) than they can create in just one factory?
Do you really believe all this stuff you write? I'm starting to think that you're yanking our chains. I find it hard to believe that anyone can be this unaware of how the manufacturing process works.
I'd like to see them using local materials, at a local factory. Ideally there wouldn't be such big corporations, but many small ones instead. Not necessarily hundreds of factories, but hundreds of local businesses, making products that their local communities demand. Of course, this is in my utopian world, and has nothing do with our original conversation, which is that buying from local farmers can alleviate the need to truck food all over the country. You can twist that one every which way you want, but the simple fact is that it's true. Apply the saying "Think globally, act locally".
If a semi-trailer loaded with 30 tons of Burt's Bees delivers it to a few stores, then it actually saves fuel, rather then hundreds of individual cars driving to the manufacturer to purchase the product. A few semi-trucks driving cross country to bring the product to stores, saves more fuel then building new manufacturing plants, not to mention all the commuting to and from work for those employees and customers, not to mention the electricity and manpower consumed by dozens of Burt's Bees manufacturing plants.
I can understand this point. This thread has gotten completely off the original argument, though, and was about trucking food across the country, not Burt's Bees. See the above post about my utopian world and local businesses.
Last edited by coastalgirl; 08-16-2011 at 03:43 PM..
Reason: grammar
It doesn't take a train a whole week either, which is why it was a story. An example. You understand that, right?
Trains typically take three days to cross the country with freight as well. So let's go ahead and double the original statistics.
Trucks: 104 containers per year
Trains: 10400 containers per year.
You're not making your case, but you are continuing to prove mine. Sorry, but I'd love to see your trucking business go belly up.
ETA: the statistics get even better when you consider that many trains can carry double stacked containers.
Trains can cross the country in three days. But they don't. They typically can take much longer, a month even. They get hung up in freight yards waiting for other freight to catch up, so that the train moves with a full haul.
And you're not making your case, with silly comments like wishing swagger's trucking business would go belly up. When that train gets to California, how is it going to get to the factory or the distributor or the warehouse? Those things can be hundreds of miles away.
NOTHING gets shipped in this country that hasn't been on a truck at least part of the time. NOTHING.
Yup. Durham is about 2 hours away. The distribution center is in Mooresville, which is right outside of Charlotte. I buy their products from Earth Fare, which is a locally (NC) owned natural foods market.
And I take it that Earth Fare's staff all get on bicycles each morning and trek to Mooresville and to all the other suppliers to pick-up their stock, right?
Bascailly its just anther way of funding highways and related infrastructure as gasoline tax doesn't do the job as it once did because of increased mileage. Basicallly it levels the burden by usage and with federal highway funding likely to drop states are just addressing that cut too in funding.Most propoasals I have seen is to drop gasoline tax and change to a usage fees to get back to more usage realted tax.
One can't grow food in the desert? I didn't know that. I will have to inform all of Israel and all of the people in the southwest of U.S.A. that they can't grow any food.
Are you just piling on idiocy for the sheer fun of it? Show me where I said food can't be grown in the desert. I dare you!
In the meantime, the Southwest desert region of the United States cannot grow enough food to completely sustain the populations living there. Period.
One can't grow food in the desert? I didn't know that. I will have to inform all of Israel and all of the people in the southwest of U.S.A. that they can't grow any food.
Hi. Southwest U.S.A. here.
I'm looking around, and I'm not seeing farms capable of producing enough food to feed the region. Plenty of dirt, but there's too much heat and not enough water...
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("many trains can..") 
