Railroads have changed a lot from the days when every industry, warehouse and shop had a rail spur. Industries that still use those spurs are more likely to receive goods or raw materials that aren't practical to ship any other way. As you said, rail spurs aren't coming back to deliver freight to customers.
Trucks are much more nimble and flexible than trains when it comes to delivering small shipments to multiple customers. Trains are effective at delivering a large volume of freight or bulk commodities such as wheat, corn syrup, cement and ethanol to a single customer or transload point. Decades ago, trucking companies and railroads competed against one another to move both big and small shipments, and while some of this still exists, generally speaking both modes turned to cooperation instead of competition.
So, today you have railroads moving large volumes of freight by trailer and container to intermodal terminals, where the trailer and container are then delivered locally by a truck. The cost savings is very real compared to a rail only or a truck only mode, both in terms of fuel and labor costs. And railroads love the idea that they don't have to serve individual customers at their industries, delivering one or two railcars at a time, which can add days to delivery time. By moving the freight via intermodal trains, mile-and-a-half long trains of containers stacked two-high and trailers on flatcars can be delivered cross-country in not much more time than it takes to drive. Less time, in fact, for the highest priority trains.
BLET Locomotive Engineer here
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