[narism]

Rail freight and passengers mostly share the same tracks in Japan with the exception of the Shinkansen network* which is passenger only. The big difference is Japan sends way less freight by rail than the US and freight that does go by rail is scheduled at night when there are no passenger trains running.

*There’s probably an exception to the exception for the Akita / Yamagata branches that partially run on regular train lines.

[bobthepanda]

On the one hand having passengers go by rail is not good for carbon. On the other hand replacing freight rail with trucks is also not good for carbon.

There are few rail networks that manage to serve both well.