The freight operators say they obey law. I've talk to their drivers (on my last trip one was taking amtrak) who tell about hours waiting for a late amtrak.
i don't know who is right but I don't trust anyone to tell the full truth.
They do obey the law: they're required to pull onto a siding to allow Amtrak to stay on time. So the operators ensure the train is too long for any of the sidings, which fits them into an escape clause. Any cargo train stuck waiting for Amtrak simply isn't fully stacked yet.
Closing that loophole is what the government is dragging its feet about.
> United States – BNSF Railway and Union Pacific Railroad (UP) regularly operate intermodal container trains exceeding 5,000 metres (16,500 ft) in length on main lines in the western United States. On the UP, these trains can stretch to over 6,100 metres (20,000 ft) with 5 locomotives and 280 well cars.
Those are incredible figures. It would almost be a shame to ban such amazing monuments to engineering. Not to mention that it's probably the most efficent and enviromentally friendly way to do things.
It's not due to the logistics of rail labor and a bunch of other things. I forget the math but smaller trains can run more often without sitting for hours and take advantage of fuel and labor better.
the podcast well there's your problem covered it in deep detail
Dual track isn’t really a two way road, with signaling it ends up being infinite sidings, and is used almost more for passing than for two-way traffic - if it exists outside cities.
Unfortunately much of the USA is single or effectively single tracked.
it's possible that freight trains are waiting for an Amtrak that was itself, earlier delayed by freight trains and became late. And given that equipment on a route will become the return journey this could cascade out of control.
Amtraks are never in charge of dispatching on routes they don't own, and there's a very clear correlation between on time performance and percentage of the route they do own.
i don't know who is right but I don't trust anyone to tell the full truth.