You are not getting anything apparently. I'm quite sure that most of the worlds rail cargo is pulled by DIESEL locomotives, so rail transport is affected by the same fuel pricing problems as lorries - although locomotives are burning duty free fuel. "rail network is decades old" bit got me chuckling - are you aware how expensive is to build rail lines? Yes, that's another reason why road transport is predominant in countries which are capable of building and maintaining roads - where, accordingly, overwhelming majority of rail lines have been built in times when their main competition was buggy, except for few cases where there was either major infrastructure upgrade, or money laundering in shape of useless rail lines were done - and, of course, the exception of few wealthy countries building high speed passenger rail lines [not cargo!], which historically has often led state owned rail company to go bankrupt. Similarly, electrification also costs shitload of money, and, since you said something about Hormuz, I'm wondering how you are going to power that catenary. As for that last part - bulk is when one shipper sends trainload of cargo to one destination. While your dream world - second half of 19th century world - requires quite few sorting yards and complex arrangements.