[bobthepanda]

Freight rail is perfectly fine spending minimum amounts of money on clapped out tracks that twist and curve. Freight rail is never going to compete with air freight on speed, and is also much faster than boats, so speed is not really a priority.

Competitive passenger rail is high speed. High speed requires double tracks (to avoid slowing down to let trains pass), straighter rights of way to go faster (increasing land acquisition cost), and very high maintenance levels for safety and comfort reasons. Hosting is freight trains on high speed rail tracks also significantly increases their already high maintenance costs because they are so much heavier and cause more wear and tear.

Nationalization, I think, is less the driving fundamental here than the inherent conflict between timely, regular passenger services and the American freight rail system for bulk freight. The only time the freight railroads really prioritized passenger services was when they delivered mail on those trains, which is also lightweight and needs fast delivery, but that has long moved to air freight.

[ghaff]

>but that has long moved to air freight

Well, not even air freight. How much extremely time-sensitive information is actually transported physically these days?

I have a few things like my tax return but most of what I deal with these days is sent electronically if it's really urgent.

[bobthepanda]

Mail services also included small parcels, and if anything those continue to need ever faster logistics.

When we talk about air vs rail we are talking about hours and days vs. days and weeks.

[ghaff]

Fair enough. The transfer of information has moved online to a significant degree. But the transfer of small/light physical stuff has definitely moved into shorter latency territory.