[vertex-four]

The issue isn’t who runs it, it’s that the trains don’t have tracks to reasonably run on. Elsewhere, when passenger trains are delayed, every effort is made to get them back on time again - in America, they’re left for hours in a siding while freight trains go by.

[rayiner]

The northeast regional trains are routinely 30-50 minutes late, and Amtrak owns those tracks and has priority on them.

[mattl]

At least pieces of those lines are MetroNorth. They can slow things down out of NYC towards Boston.

[pm24601]

That is to be expected with underinvestment.

[JKCalhoun]

Yep, freight has right of way.

[jessaustin]

Rightly so. Rail freight is important in USA, while rail travel is not. We already have too many semi trucks on the roads; it would be foolish to force more freight onto the highways to pander to some dream about rail travel.

[ghaff]

I wouldn't worry too much about that. My understanding is that rail freight is about 10% the cost of trucking it.

[gok]

No. Legally, Amtrak always has priority over freight. There are cases where host railroads are badly behaved but more often the problem is that Amtrak is poorly operated.