Just thinking bulk delivery
Sounds like a plan, until you involved the railroad. Never had much luck there, least my father didn't, and my ex-FIL worked for one. Your stuff gets delivered, matter of when is the problem, hardwood coming down the line getting there in May would be an expensive miss I think.
With firewood you need to be at least a year in advance anyway, so it is seasoned, plus less weight to ship, truck or rail line. I have no idea what it costs to ship by rail, but it has to be cheaper than by truck. So maybe time lag wouldn't be so much of an issue? You want to be stockpiled well in advance there.
All I know in business, is if it is cheaper over yonder, and you can get it to where it is more expensive to retail, like where you are, and your shipping costs are included, and it still is a deal, that is called profit and is how modern business works. When you have all the firewood guys in an area all having the same basic cost, and same access to the same wood, how can you stand out? You have species to offer, stages of seasoning, cost, how neat it looks for the customer and all that to take into consideration.
Now I haven't run any studies at all, just remembering way way back I helped some folks with their firewood business. If they had stuck to local, no profit, waste of time, too much competition, etc. Everyone knew someone with a woodlot anyway. So, they go upscale, delivering into upscale bean town. Only "pretty" wood in perfect sizes, hand delivered, some times up elevators, to rich people. Value added steps increase what you can charge. Those guys use an old school bus with the seats ripped out for their delivery truck, wood coming from western mass. Wood that might have got them break even status and a few bucks a cord chump change for all that work, they made hundreds from instead, just be totin it down into the big city.
Similar sort of idea, just getting good wood that doesn't exist in an area with good demand, then figuring out cheapest way to do that, to get it moved there. then you stand out among all the other local wood guys. Rail cars just have a rep for being cheaper for bulk heavy commodities transport, which firewood would have to be considered.
The only anecdotals I have from rail cars and wood are some woodshops/factories I worked at (total, three) in my 20s that bought and brought raw hardwood logs (white birch, rock maple, birds eye maple, etc) and turned them into finished products, and the logs got delivered by rail car right to the facilities, not by tractor trailer OTR, because it was loads cheaper.
