[dragontamer]

US Freight Rail is among the most utilized and most efficient in the world.

Freight Rail is actually the reason why our passenger rail sucks so much, because in USA, Freight has priority over passengers. So a lot of our passenger rails sit waiting for the freight-trains to pass.

[mulderc]

It is the other way around. Passenger rail has priority but that law is ignored by freight operators.

“For over 50 years, freight railroads have been required by law to provide Amtrak with “preference” to run passenger trains ahead of freight trains. 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.” https://www.amtrak.com/on-time-performance#:~:text=For%20ove....

[dragontamer]

Oh wow. That's incredible. So legally Passenger Rail has priority, but in practice the freight-corporations bully the passenger lines.

Its a difficult situation, because nominally, the freight-rail operators also own those raillines. So a free-market solution is likely not possible. This is just something that needs to be enforced from the top-down.

[mulderc]

A free market solution was never feasible as there are just too many parties and externalities involved. This was always going to be a situation where some type of monopoly would happen at various levels which would likely require some type of regulatory intervention to achieve a Pareto-optimal situation.

There are likely solution to the issue that are not top-down, but this isn’t a situation where free market forces will provide the socially optimal outcome.

[dubcanada]

> Freight Rail is actually the reason why our passenger rail sucks so much, because in USA, Freight has priority over passengers. So a lot of our passenger rails sit waiting for the freight-trains to pass.

Do you have any sources for this? This doesn't sound correct to me. A train is a queue, there is no priority in regards to crossings that I know of.

Edit: I stand corrected, Amtrak report does suggest that freight might have a priority. That report is honestly shocking.

[mulderc]

Freight doesn’t have priority, passenger trains have priority according to the law but the law is functionally unenforceable so freight steals priority from passengers.