A closer look
Freight companies looked at trains and trucks and decided to aggressively mash them together into one incredibly heavy compromise. The Roadrailer system involves standard highway semi-trailers fitted with an extra set of heavy, retractable steel train wheels in the back. The idea was to eliminate the need for flatbed railcars entirely, but it forced truck drivers to haul thousands of pounds of deadweight train axles around the highway network, ultimately making them terrible trucks and mediocre train cars.
