Trains move an enormous range of goods, from coal and grain to new cars and consumer electronics. In the United States, rail carries about 10.6% of total freight tonnage, while in Europe, metal ores alone account for nearly 15% of all rail freight by weight. The specific mix varies by region, but certain categories dominate rail networks worldwide because they share key traits: they’re heavy, they travel long distances, and they benefit from the cost savings rail offers over trucking.
Agricultural Products
Grain is one of the oldest and most important rail commodities. In the U.S., agricultural carloads are dominated by corn, wheat, and soybeans, with smaller but significant volumes of sorghum, barley, and oats. These crops move in dedicated hopper cars from farms and grain elevators to processing plants, export terminals, and livestock operations across the country.
Beyond raw grain, rail also carries processed agricultural goods like soybean meal, corn syrup, and other grain byproducts. Agricultural chemicals, including fertilizers, represent another major rail category tied to the farming economy. The sheer weight and volume of these products make rail far more efficient than trucking. A single grain train can replace hundreds of truck trips.
Coal and Energy Products
Coal has historically been the single largest commodity moved by rail in the U.S., and it still accounts for a significant share of originated rail units. Coal trains run from mining regions to power plants, steel mills, and export ports, often in dedicated “unit trains” that carry nothing else. These trains can stretch over a mile long and haul more than 10,000 tons in a single trip.
Petroleum products and crude oil also move by rail, particularly from production areas that lack pipeline access. Mineral fuels as a broader category represented $872 million in cross-border rail trade in a single month in 2018, a significant jump from the prior year. Ethanol, propane, and other liquid energy products round out this category.
Chemicals and Hazardous Materials
Chemicals are a major rail freight category, encompassing everything from industrial solvents to plastic resins. Plastics alone accounted for over $900 million in monthly cross-border rail shipments in 2018. Many of these products qualify as hazardous materials, which are subject to strict federal regulations governing how they’re packaged, labeled, and positioned within a train.
Hazardous goods transported by rail fall into several classes: explosives, compressed gases, flammable liquids, flammable solids, oxidizers, poisonous materials, corrosive substances, and radioactive materials. These move in specially designed tank cars and containers built to withstand impacts and prevent leaks. Rail cars carrying the most dangerous materials must be placed in specific positions within the train, separated from locomotives and occupied cars by buffer vehicles. Despite the risks, rail is considered one of the safer ways to move hazardous materials over long distances because trains derail far less frequently than trucks crash on highways.
Motor Vehicles and Auto Parts
New cars and automotive parts represent one of the highest-value categories in rail freight. Motor vehicles and parts totaled nearly $6 billion in cross-border rail trade in a single month in 2018, making them the top commodity by dollar value crossing between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico by rail. You’ve likely seen the distinctive multi-level auto rack cars on rail lines near major highways. These enclosed carriers can transport a dozen or more finished vehicles at once from assembly plants to distribution centers across the continent.
Auto parts flow in the opposite direction, too, moving from suppliers to assembly plants as part of tightly coordinated supply chains. This two-way flow makes the automotive industry one of rail’s most important customers.
Metals and Minerals
In Europe, metal ores are the single largest rail freight category, making up 12.2% of all rail tonne-kilometres in 2024. Iron ore, copper, bauxite, and other raw materials move from mines to smelters and steel mills by rail because they are extraordinarily heavy relative to their value, which makes trucking them impractical over any real distance.
Finished metals like steel coils, beams, and pipe also rely on rail. Construction aggregates such as sand, gravel, and crushed stone move in open-top hopper cars. Lumber and wood products round out this industrial category, representing about $450 million in monthly cross-border rail trade.
Consumer Goods and Intermodal Freight
The fastest-growing segment of rail freight is intermodal shipping, where standardized containers move seamlessly between ships, trains, and trucks. This is how most consumer products travel by rail. Retail goods, electronics, clothing, furniture, and packaged food all ride in containers that arrive at a port on a cargo ship, transfer to a train for the long-haul leg across the country, and then get picked up by a truck for final delivery to a warehouse or store.
Computers and electronic parts accounted for over $700 million in monthly cross-border rail shipments in 2018. Intermodal rail is competitive with long-haul trucking on routes over about 500 miles because it uses far less fuel per ton moved. For retailers shipping large volumes of goods from coastal ports to inland distribution centers, rail intermodal is often the default choice.
How Rail Compares to Trucking
Trucking dominates the overall freight market, handling 72.7% of U.S. freight tonnage and 76.9% of revenue in 2024. Rail’s 10.6% tonnage share is projected to dip slightly to 9.9% by 2035. But these numbers can be misleading. Rail punches well above its weight on specific types of freight: heavy bulk commodities, long-distance hauls, and goods that don’t need next-day delivery. A single freight train can carry the load of several hundred trucks while burning a fraction of the fuel.
The practical split works out roughly like this: trucks handle shorter distances, time-sensitive deliveries, and final-mile transport. Trains handle the heavy, high-volume, long-distance middle leg. Many shipments use both, with trucks feeding goods to rail yards and picking them up at the other end. That combination of rail and truck is exactly what intermodal freight is built around, and it’s the segment where rail continues to grow even as its share of raw tonnage slowly shrinks.