Desert Freight Train

The supreme stillness of the desert is broken with the crashing thunder of a metal monster mashing its way over the dry landscape. The screeching sound of its wheels makes the desert sizzle with anxiety, as if the whole world were collapsing in on itself and the arid sands were being sucked into some screaming black hole. Luckily, the sound passes and the desert returns to its simple and timeless quiet once more. Traditional transport of manufactured goods was with boxcars (US) or covered goods wagons (UIC & UK), where the goods were manually loaded and unloaded off the wagon. During the 1960s containerization has made this extra level of labour-intense work unnecessary; while the containers must be moved onto or off the wagons with cranes, the content in the container remains constant from sender to receiver. When considered in terms of ton-miles (tonne-kilometers) hauled per unit of consumed energy, rail transport is more efficient than other means of transportation. This sound uses the following file from Freesound: http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=113998