I can’t necessarily blame Amtrak for a lot of their speed and timing issues. They’re at the whims of the freight carriers in many sections of shared track.
Legally passenger trains have priority. But reality means loopholes. Like making the freight trains too long to fit onto side tracks, forcing the passenger trains there instead causing delays.
The Trump stuff is a different beast, but even then with something that’s heavily reliant on federal funding, not annoying the dictator in chief is more of a requirement to continue to exist at all.
That should be easy to enforce with current laws. If you can’t pull onto the side tracks then you should be fined. But it needs public and political will.
I can’t necessarily blame Amtrak for a lot of their speed and timing issues. They’re at the whims of the freight carriers in many sections of shared track.
Legally passenger trains have priority. But reality means loopholes. Like making the freight trains too long to fit onto side tracks, forcing the passenger trains there instead causing delays.
Wendover has a pretty good video about this and other aspects of 50 year old transportation laws.
The Trump stuff is a different beast, but even then with something that’s heavily reliant on federal funding, not annoying the dictator in chief is more of a requirement to continue to exist at all.
That should be easy to enforce with current laws. If you can’t pull onto the side tracks then you should be fined. But it needs public and political will.