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Comment by treyd | Hacker News Reader

> but it also made long stops to make way for cargo traffic.

This is a huge issue. Cargo trains legally have to yield to passenger trains, but in recent decades cargo trains have been made longer and longer, so they no longer physically fit into the passing sidings (which usually are built for 75 cars). It's a mess.

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Cargo (freight) trains have to yield to on time passenger trains. There's a "hole" there in the freight traffic that the passenger train fits into. (It's not simple, because the passenger train is often faster than the freights, so it's a carefully planned, moving hole in the freight.) If the passenger train is late, all that careful orchestration is blown. The hole isn't there any more. The freight trains are not required to create a new hole - the late passenger train becomes just one more train.

Hmmm, but why are the passenger trains late in the first place?

On the train trip I took, it was because of an unruly passenger.

It turned a 9-hour trip into a 15-hour trip.

Sometimes because of the freight railroads.

Sometimes because the passenger equipment breaks, or wasn't available. (One way that can work is, if the train is hours late arriving at the endpoint, that equipment isn't available to become the next train in the opposite direction.)

Sometimes because a passenger becomes ill, or even dies, or (as ars said) becomes unruly enough to need arresting.

Sometimes because some driver wasn't paying attention, and ran into the train (or into the freight train ahead of the passenger train).

Sometimes because of weather. (Two feet of snow since the last train passed can slow down a train significantly. Either too much heat or too much cold lowers the safe operating speed. Too much rain can cause problems, too.)

And so on, and so on. Sure, a lot of the time it's the fault of the freight railroad. A lot of the time it's not, too.

And the DoJ hasn't been enforcing Amtrak's priority dispatch since the 1970s.

There's been a very recent attempt to change this. This was the first thing I found:

https://www.govexec.com/management/2024/08/justice-departmen...

I'm quite positive freight just has right of way because of the rail ownership. Are you quite sure it is the other way round?

You’re incorrect.

https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance

> For over 50 years, freight railroads have been required by law to provide Amtrak with “preference” to run passenger trains ahead of freight trains.

I'm not sure I'd interpret "preference" to "right-of-way." Sounds like a much softer expectation, but could be wrong.

Amtrak is a joke either way. The train I took from Chicago to Las Vegas was over 24 hours late, hit a car, flattened the wheels in the emergency braking so they could only go about 20mph to the next station where they had to change out the entire train, then had a mechanical breakdown, and when we finally arrived they had lost our luggage.

The very next sentence is: "However, many freight railroads ignore the law because it is extremely difficult for Amtrak to enforce it, and as a result, people and the American economy suffer."

This entire page is an attempt by Amtrak to explain why the trains are always waiting for freight traffic. I've taken the train many times, and they yield to freight traffic for hours every trip.

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