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tuke | 3 years ago

The post suggests that "freight trains have priority."

By law, passenger travel is expected to have "precedence."

Read: https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...

discuss

order

azefiel|3 years ago

While technically true, that law is never enforced, so in practice OP's statement is sadly correct. Wendover Productions made a great video [0] explaining this situation.

[0]: https://youtu.be/qQTjLWIHN74?t=07m40s

jrochkind1|3 years ago

Interesting! Your link suggests that legally passenger trains are supposed to have priority, but that in practice freight trains are given priority.

I didn't know this, and it makes me even madder! But as far as an explanation for why Amtrak trains are so often delayed (which is how it appeared in OP?), it appears to be correct that it's because freight trains are given priority. It's just that... they're not supposed to be, right?

At least according to Amtrak? I wonder if anyone has a third-party analysis of what's going on? I'm surprised I've never heard this before, thank you for bringing it up.

> The leading cause of delay to Amtrak passengers is “freight train interference”...

> ...Myth: “Amtrak already has the highest priority of all trains on freight rail lines.”

> Truth: Freight trains represent the largest cause of delay to passengers.

noahtallen|3 years ago

There is something called "Precision Scheduled Railroading" (PSR) which ultimately means that freight trains are longer than they used to be. (https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-23-105420) The result is that these long trains (even 3 miles long) can't fit on sidings, which means that they can't practically give way to, say, Amtrak, when there's only a single track. (Which is a lot of routes!)

In other words, freight rail has optimized very hard on saving costs, and since they own the tracks, there's not much Amtrak can do to win.

I think the only real solution is dedicated, grade-separated tracks for passenger trains (ideally high speed), but that's unfortunately a pipe dream :(

bobthepanda|3 years ago

The problem is that the DoJ is the one with the power to enforce said regulations, and DoJ is about as interested as a patrol officer being asked to do parking enforcement.

There have been bills to allow Amtrak to file civil suits but as far as I know they haven’t passed.

adgjlsfhk1|3 years ago

The TLDR is that most of the US is single tracked and the freight trains are bigger than the passenger train has to wait even if it has priority because the freight train is too big to wait.