Originally Posted by
CliffordK
I think it is complex. I think Amtrak rents a priority window of sorts. So, if they are on-time, they actually do have some priority. However, if knocked out of their window, then they fall to the bottom of the priority list.
That could happen for a number of reasons. I was with my niece waiting for a train in Portland, the beginning of the line headed Eastbound. Apparently something was wrong with the engine, and it took them a couple of hours to get a substitute hooked up, and to take off, by which time, the train was late leaving, and apparently further delays along the track, there was no catching up... and a couple hundred miles down the track, it had lost more time. I think that train was headed across the country, so if the pattern held up... it could well have had an extreme delay by the time it rolled into Chicago. I think it was supposed to merge with a Seattle train, and I'm not sure how they do the merge if half is on-time, and half is delayed by several hours. Would they just run both halves?
Of course, even if they should have priority, a freight train might still be able to knock them out of their scheduling window.
One of the issues that the USA has is that much of the track is single track for both directions. And, even in the places with parallel tracks, often the tracks are owned by different companies, and not available to all. So, every time trains pass, one train is forced onto a siding.
I wouldn't like to see more corridors cleared for more rails. There is a fairly nice area north of Orlando where the St. John's River runs parallel to a rail line, which has a bike road next to it, which runs parallel to US17/92, which runs parallel to I95 and there are corridors of housing and business that separate the corridors so you can bike in a nice, shaded forested area near the river with the train line also surrounded by trees. To widen the rail corridor, trees/forest and maybe the bike road would be lost. The solution would be to replace some of the paved/auto corridors with train tracks, but idk what it would take to make that happen. I don't think there is an all-of-the-above solution that creates enough space for driving and rail, and I don't think the underground boring will ultimately good (in fact, it won't even be possible in Florida because of the ground. Buses may be the only solution for a while, and hopefully they will start protecting truck lanes from auto traffic on the highways so buses will be able to have priority along with freight trucks.