Did you ever wonder how much it cost to ship by rail? NS now has a public NSRQ (NS Rate Quote) online. Not all commodities are listed, but it will still give you a idea of what shipping cost are.
The RQ's can be cyptic to read, but its east to figure out if you study them . They will change often depending on the market conditions.
The link is http://www.nscorp.com/mktgpublic/publicprices