this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2025
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Apparently the situation with freight is the opposite, where the US networks are efficient compared to Europe (and even China), hence so much stuff is trucked across Europe instead.
As always, take YT videos with grains of salt, but it makes good points:
https://youtu.be/77pIj8kURoY
Meanwhile, other videos suggest that the US's own passenger rail suppliers (like manufacturers/designers) are basically gone because the situation is so bad, hence companies like Amtrak end up importing EU stuff.
The way I understand it in the states is that all the rail lines are freight lines, and amtrack shares the rails. I've taken amtrak before and had to stop for like 15 minutes for a freight train because they have the right of way
AFAIK passenger trains have priority. But they have a lot of single rail infrastructre and freight games the system with trains that are too long for passing sidings, so the passenger trains have to wait.
I had heard that freight usually has priority largely because Amtrak leases the tracks from the freight companies that own the rails and usually a stipulation of those leases is a priority for the company's trains.
Federal law requires that passenger trains be given priority
https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/public/documents/corporate/HostRailroadReports/mythbusters-enforcing-amtraks-legal-right-to-preference.pdf
However, a law that isn't enforced doesn't really exist.
Here in Italy most cargo is on trucks, our highways are a nightmare when it comes to traffic. The rest of Europe is usually better.
Kind of? The new locomotives are the Siemens Alc 42, but they are built in California.
Edit: To your point, Seimens makes a way better locomotive, and profits go overseas.
And big tech profits from the EU flow to the US you win sum dim sum
couldn’t they add freight cars to passenger trains to help with this?
Based on my experience playing Railway Empire, passenger cars with people and their luggage is significantly lighter than a freight car of the same size loaded with cargo. This means it takes a lot more energy to get the freight moving at a higher speed, and maybe more importantly a lot more to stop (I think it takes 3-4 football fields for a loaded freight train to stop from 30mph). So just having passengers allows the train to travel at much higher speeds. Speed is something more valuable for passengers because they want to get where they are going sooner. Freight is more about total throughput volume so it may be better to have one heavier train carrying twice much at a slower speed than two trains have the size each moving faster. So while you could have a mixed train it's not going to be as fast as the passengers want due to the heavy freight cars slowing the train down and won't carry as large a volume as the freight customers want because some cars are being taken up by passengers.