In my opinion, the scenario that you presented fits more to countries like China, US, Russia and Australia where very long distance between two transit hubs are big enough for railway to be more preferable. But in Europe where such distance is much smaller, electrical trucks may be better reducing the loading and unloading works. Just think of these trucks as train carriages with individual motors, you would see less difference between trucks and trains, the Japanese high speed train has motors on every carriage, you can imagine them travelling independently just like these trucks.
Combined, the EU territories have more than enough size and scale to make rail a suitable alternative to road.
To say trucks are little different then trains with individual drive carriages is to miss the point of the economy of scale savings involved. Each train carriage can carry many times what could be carried in a road capable truck. By that logic, you can use a dozen family cars to transport the goods in 1 truck.
Sure you can do that, and in some instances, that could even make more commercial and economic sense. But for long haul transport, bulk carriage offers significant advantages.
You cut down on the labour requirements, needing only 1 train driver instead of dozens of truck drivers; fuel costs, pollution and congestion are all eased, and transport times cut.
I think there is great potential for this sort of rail technology revolution with China's OROB initiative. Because it's a clean slate programme, covering vast distances, which falls under the control of a single lead country.
Once set up and the enormous benefits demonstrated, I believe the concept and technology could easily be adopted back home in China, and then become the new gold standard for the future of world freight rail.
