Taking the rail idea a step further and looking to further solve the differential equation, Plains All American Pipeline (NYSE:PAA) is converting a former Virginia refinery to offload crude railcars and then shift their cargoes to ships to move crude oil along the coasts of the United States, profiting from price differentials.

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If you come straight over to the rail and save every step of ground, you still have to run 40 feet further from 13 than the 1.

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Institution of Civil Engineers director general Nick Baveystock said the plan "presents an opportunity to bring about a real step-change in rail capacity and help regenerate and boost the economies of our city regions".

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His next step was to integrate the rail-freight transport system with the ports.

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It would hive off the gas and rail networks, apparently as a first step towards promoting genuine competition in both energy and transport.

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The North East Rail Passengers Committee said the SRA had failed to step in to resolve a year-long conductors' strike at Arriva Trains Northern.

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Starting this month, Toshiba UK will include a standard desktop tile linking to the National Rail Enquiries journey planner on all its Windows 8 devices, and the next step for Darwin is to incorporate GPS data as it becomes more available.

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To take it a step further, according to USDOT statistics, pipelines are 451 times safer than rail on a per-mile basis.

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