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Comment by benzible | Hacker News Reader

Another major cause, maybe the single largest cause: freight train interference.

> Federal law gives passenger trains the right of way but freight train operators ignore this. [...] Federal law requires passenger trains be given priority over freight trains. However, the Department of Justice has enforced that law just once and that was 40 years ago, according to Amtrak. [...] Interference by freight trains has accounted for about 60 percent of Amtrak’s delays systemwide in recent years.

https://cnsmaryland.org/2021/12/09/historic-amtrak-funding-a...

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Here in the midwest, the freight companies will intentionally pad the train with empty cars until it's just too long to fit in the passing turnouts and therefore forces passenger trains to pull off and wait. Detroit to Chicago and back is therefore a tossup between arriving early and arriving 12-24hrs late.

In Europe and Asia, we solve that issue by limiting maximum consist weight, usually in the range of 2k to 5k tons.

It's a bit more complicated as I understand it. An on-schedule Amtrak train is supposed to have priority but if they get off-schedule they lose their priority slot. Another problem I gather is that some freight trains are just too long to pull over onto a siding.

> some freight trains are just too long to pull over onto a siding.

Exactly, and in addition to the blocking passenger trains they're at greater risk of derailment [1] and in some communities, particularly rural poor communities with little political power, they block crossings for as much as 30 minutes at a time [2] blocking ambulances, preventing children from getting to school, etc.

[1] https://www.propublica.org/article/train-derailment-long-tra...

[2] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/stalled-freight-trains-cau...

Aren't there any regulations regarding maximum length? In Europe, the maximum allowed length seems to be 740/835 meters.

The longest cargo train in the US was 5.5km long: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_trains#General_cargo

A house burned down in a neighborhood in Gaineseville, Georgia last year. Not noted in the news articles about is the fact that the fire department was late because the only way to the neighborhood has a train crossing, and there was a train.

just to round out the picture, freight trains in the US are a success story, they're heavily used by customers who make the companies profitable and self-sustaining.

passenger trains lose money and are heavily subsidized to stay afloat.

just in terms of where they fit into the national economy, freight trains are important and integral at every level, and passenger trains much less so, or only to small communities.

This is a self-fulfilling prophecy, of course. High-speed passenger trains do very well all over the world. Coast-to-coast distances are too long for them, but cities in the US tend to be clustered at distances that are absolutely viable if we cared to invest. And if we continue to treat passenger rail as an afterthought, of course it will remain one.

This is why hyperloop is so puzzling to me. There’s established processes and supply chains to deliver and sustain high speed rail, and quite a few routes in sparsely populated areas would benefit with little disruption to existing infrastructure, like Vegas-LA (or somewhere ).

Vegas to LA has already broken ground

Train and freight companies seemingly operate with impunity, have a crazy amount of influence over politics and regulation, and despite hundreds of billions of dollars thrown at various mass transit passenger plans over the decades, there's hardly any progress with regards to passenger solutions. These companies don't even have to lobby, apparently, because their influence and regulatory capture make them incredibly powerful.

They pull down around $260 billion a year in the US. $20ish million goes toward political donations and lobbying, by all 6-700 corporations - the stuff that's trackable, that is. Makes you wonder what you'd find if you could follow the money.

Passenger trains in the USA are slow and unreliable, so of course they struggle to find a market.

If they didn't have to queue up behind freight trains trundling along at a bicycle's pace, things may be difference.

> passenger trains lose money and are heavily subsidized to stay afloat.

Roads and highways also lose money and are heavily subsidized to stay afloat.

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