Are you aware that an Amtrak passenger train was stuck in South Carolina for 39 hours this month? Some of the passengers felt they were being held hostage. At least at an airport you can walk outside and catch an Uber.
There’s a reason for that. Freight has priority because the freight companies actually own the rails, and actually use them, and it’s a significant contributor to the US economy. Amtrak is an unwelcome guest that they are required by law to put up with. If they wanted better service, Amtrak could pay for it, except the big cross country routes are already crazy unprofitable.
The actual sane solution is to shut down those routes and run buses. American heavy rail outside the NEC is better suited for freight anyway. Build new dedicated corridors for fast passenger services, or stay home.
Your comment gives the impression that Amtrak has no business operating on the tracks they do.
The reason the freight companies own those rails is primarily from the land grants made my the federal government which came with obligations, such as providing passenger service. Amtrak has trackage rights because the freight companies wanted to divest their passenger rail operations. Maybe an unwelcome guest, but essentially a former part of their own operations.
Anyhow, buses are an insufficient substitute for passenger trains and already available from other operators. If they were sufficient people wouldn't be on the trains.
Yeah. They gave railroads the initial land — in 1872. There’s been a lot that’s happened since then, like the bankruptcy and near-complete collapse of functional passenger rail transportation in most areas in the 1970s-1980s, as it faced stunning new competition from cars and planes.
But the argument of “is this justified given the history?!” should take a back seat; certainly Congress is able to force the industry’s hand whether or not it’s justified. The first question should be whether it’s a good idea in the first place, since rail is doing useful things for the US economy, which would ultimately shoulder more costs for it than the railroads themselves as a business.
Damaging the supply chain and raising prices across the economy while putting more trucks on the taxpayer-funded roads emitting more carbon dioxide is a steep price. Incremental improvements to the reliability of seldom-used cross-country routes through the sparsely inhabited West at speeds of about 60mph aren’t worth that price.
Well, another option is that the government could pay for Amtrak’s track the way they do for roads. We don't make car manufacturers or taxi/bus companies pay for the roads, so I don't see why it's on Amtrak to pay for their own rail.
On the highways, the government has taxed motor vehicle fuels at the federal and state level (supplying occasional infusions from the general fund) and occasionally set up tolls for specific projects, generally setting higher for more intensive use (trucks). Thus bus and truck operators pay for use of the highway, perhaps occasionally joined by taxpayers generally.
By contrast, on the railroads, Burlington Northern Santa Fe or whoever purchased the rail from the decrepit husk of bankruptcy that preceded it, and upgraded it, and installed all the new safety equipment, and maintained it over time. The capital involved here is, by and large, private.
So there shouldn’t be any surprise that the situations are different.
I don’t know why you want to drag in manufacturers, though. It seems to muddy the water.
> Build new dedicated corridors for fast passenger services
If only, one of the best investments for NA would be an actual HSR network outside freight. California is trying and there are so many people who are doing everything they can to stop it. Including musk inventing an impossible alternative he never invented to build[1], hyperloop, as HSR would compete with tesla and hurt his sales.
Doesn't Amtrak pay for that? I have a feeling if there was an effort to shut them down and replace it with buses, the freight companies would block it. They benefit from the relationship.
This feeling is grossly at odds with the reality: hostility between host railroads and Amtrak is well known as the order of the day. Amtrak pays a well-below-market sweetheart rate, for trains that often miss their slots and snarl operations. No host railroad would miss them.
Half a dozen news stories about passengers getting trapped on planes that were sitting on the tarmac from the past 30 days alone.
I'll take being "trapped" on a train that has a cafe car, numerous bathrooms, power outlets, likely cell phone service or wifi, plenty of room to walk around, and considerably more leg room and seat-reclining...over being trapped in a metal tube, crunched into a tiny seat, with a bathroom that probably won't function past a few hours, limited food, no power, and nowhere to get up and walk around.
Not to mention, if you're anywhere near civilization, if push comes to shove: you have at least some possibility of being able to just leave. On a jet airliner in an airport, you are completely trapped.
Federally airlines should be required to deplane passengers after a certain amount of time, or immediately if the plane becomes too hot/cold, runs out of water, or the bathroom stops working....and the flight crew criminally punished if they don't. But that will never happen because of airline industry lobbyists.
That's terrible. On the other hand, airports for me are guaranteed to be awful, and I've always enjoyed the Amtrak. If I'm in a hurry to get someplace I'll take a plane, sure. I wish we had high speed rail in this country (or I'd never fly again except internationally) but of course we don't. If there's no particular rush I'll take my sweet time on the Amtrak, and if it's delayed for 30 hours - like I said, you'll find me minding my reading with no complaints.
in some countries in Europe you actually can do that too from trains (and not only in Romania, where a family crossed the tracks (2 <4 y.o. kids, 4 pieces of luggage) to conveniently enter the parking lot, where their car was located)
