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The One Tiny Law That Keeps Amtrak Terrible

Wendover Productions4 HN recommenders · 2023–2025
3.6M views · explainer · evergreen · Uploaded 2023-01-10

Wendover Productions explains why Amtrak trains run late: most Amtrak routes run on freight-owned track, and the law giving passenger trains priority is rarely enforced. The video covers rail ownership versus control and how freight carriers hold the leverage.

HN commenters cite it whenever passenger rail delays or expansion come up, as the clearest explanation of freight priority over Amtrak.

Transit, cities & urban planningLaw, policing & justice

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8 comments from Hacker News

@katbyte2023 · in “”

Blame the fact freight generally overrules passenger: [VIDEO] Amtrak isn’t allowed to be successful Either way rather be stuck on a train then a plane anyday

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@uoaei2023 · in “Passenger Uses AirTags, Discovers Airline Donated Their Bags to Charity”

Amtrak is supposed to get first priority, but lines are still owned by freight companies who culled many passenger-heavy lines for "efficiency" and run extremely long trains that clog up traffic for hours, again for some spreadsheet-worthy target metric of "efficiency". Here's a video from Wendover Productions about the laws surrounding ownership vs control: [VIDEO]

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@azefiel2023 · in “43 Hours on the Amtrak Southwest Chief”

While technically true, that law is never enforced, so in practice OP's statement is sadly correct. Wendover Productions made a great video [0] explaining this situation. [0]: [VIDEO]

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@arthurfm2023 · in “Vinyl Chloride and the Ohio Train Derailment”

Wendover Productions posted an interesting train-related video recently. [VIDEO] It would appear that the issues with Amtrak can be traced back to freight rail as well. See 07:46 onwards for more details.

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@travisporter2023 · in “Tesla Master Plan Part 3”

I saw this video recently that claims that right of way from freight trains are the only thing stopping expanded Amtrak service between many big metros - eg. LA to Vegas. [VIDEO]

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@cratermoon2023 · in “What if US had a train run parallel to every highway?”

We kind of do. It's just that the tracks are owned by freight companies BNSF, Union Pacific, CSX, or Norfolk Southern. Take a look at their system maps. BNSF: [LINK] UP: [LINK] CSX: [LINK] NS: [LINK] Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Kansas City fill in a few gaps in the US and extend the system to Canada and Mexico. Throw in Ferromex and that covers most of North America. We have the trackage, we need to find a way to put passenger rail on a better footing against freight carriers. See [VIDEO]

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@zuppy2024 · in “Autonomous trucking is harder than autonomous rideshare”

wendover did a good viedeo about that a while ago: [VIDEO] the law says that passenger trains have priority, but nobody respects or enforces that.

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@andrewguenther2025 · in “Rail travel is booming in America”

It's not an enforcement issue so much as it is a heavily exploited loophole. Part of the reason freight trains are so long is so that they can't fit in passing sidings. Since Amtrak does fit, they end up having to yield because the freight trains simply cannot. Could this be fixed by legislation on max train length to ensure all trains fit in sidings? Yes. Will that legislation get passed? No. An interesting video on the subject: [VIDEO]

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