5 ms·

Are these all the railway tracks in the US or just the ones Amtrak operate with? For comparison, I found this map of European rails: https://www.eurorailcampai

Are these all the railway tracks in the US or just the ones Amtrak operate with? For comparison, I found this map of European rails: https://www.eurorailcampaignuk.org/railway-map-of-europe/euro-rail-map/ https://www.eurorailcampaignuk.org/railway-map-of-europe/eur... Seems the least dense (in terms of railway) European countries still have better coverage than the most dense US state.

ceejayoz 3y ago
These are a minute fraction of the railroad tracks in the US. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Class1rr.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Class1rr... shows the "Class I" railroads; just the big eight. There's a whole expansive set of Class II/III tracks. 160,000 miles total.
- capableweb 3y ago
  Thanks! I thought something looked amiss and seems a lot was.
bombcar 3y ago
That is just Amtrak and apparently just long distance Amtrak. Some commuter rail is operated by Amtrak but won’t appear I think. If you have money you can get a private passenger train almost anywhere there are tracks.
PopAlongKid 3y ago
Unfortunately except for the NEC (northeast corridor), Amtrak operates on rail lines owned by freight train operators. Technically the Amtrak passenger train has priority over freight, but one problem is that when one train needs to bypass another, the freight trains are often too long to fit on the siding, so the Amtrak train must wait instead.
- organsnyder 3y ago
  There's a segment in Michigan that was purchased by MDOT for passenger rail (Amtrak) use. There have been some improvements made for "high-speed" service. Not sure how common this is elsewhere.
  - mmcconnell1618 3y ago
    Virginia bought a segment of track from CSX back in 2021 to update and improve availability of passenger service up towards DC: https://www.npr.org/local/305/2021/03/31/983044429/virginia-finalizes-3-7-billion-deal-to-acquire-tracks-from-c-s-x#:~:text=Virginia%20officials%20and%20freight%20railroad,in%20Virginia%20over%20the%20next https://www.npr.org/local/305/2021/03/31/983044429/virginia-...
  - bombcar 3y ago
    It’s moderately common. The Pacific Surfliner runs on transit track in the LOSSAN corridor and it’s being improved.
- xenadu02 3y ago
  > the freight trains are often too long to fit on the siding This is a deliberate part of "precision scheduled railroading" which is neither precision nor scheduled. Management and investors believe railroads are in long-term decline so capital investments to improve capacity and/or speed are not done. The most important metric is the "operating ratio". If serving a new customer that adds $200m to profit would decrease the ratio by 2% the railroad will not serve the customer. So as part of this the railroad wants to minimize crew time. On a given section of track with passing sidings the railroad could move more cars by having three train crews going back and forth, creating conists just long enough to fit in the sidings. They could also extend the sidings to allow longer trains. Instead they reduce to two or even one crew and make longer consists. This often means one crew parks their train and leaves it for an entire day because they won't be able to pass the other train in the opposite direction. The crew has to take a taxi back home and leaves the train idle. Once the other train passes they or another crew comes back and resumes. It now takes 3 days to move the same number of cars it would have taken two before but over those three days the railroad only paid for 1.5 crew days instead of paying 3 crews over two days. Labor costs are reduced, operating ratio looks better, job done. I'll also point out that US railroad companies hate carrying passengers. They spent decades begging permission to discontinue passenger service, cooking books, refusing to sell tickets, etc so they could discontinue their passenger services. For example what is Caltrain used to run down to LA and was very profitable right up until the day they terminated service. edit: When management and investors punish railroads for trying to be a better railroad I don't know how you fix that brain damage. We seem stuck in an extremely sub-optimal local maxima.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    Isn't that just typical private equity investment, in every industry? Drain every ounce of blood from the body then leave the carcass.
    - xenadu02 3y ago
      Modern capitalism is definitely short-sighted but the railroads are uniquely bad in that regard. They could increase their business and keep marketshare away from road trucking without capital investment but they prioritize operating ratio instead. Every year there are fewer commercial facilities served by rail and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that railroads are in terminal decline. For sake of argument here are made-up numbers: If you can, by paying some additional labor, with no capex, increase profit by 30% even though operating ratio may slightly decrease while also protecting your business from competitors that is clearly something in the interests of shareholders. If the railroads were run like this I could explain their behavior as standard short-sightedness where they refuse to make the capex investments required to grow their business in the future. None of this gets into passenger rail service. I don't know that the US market would sustain anything like the numbers railroads did in their heyday but there are absolutely plenty of rail routes that would could have a sustainable and profitable business. With some minor capex they could even do high-speed passenger service to very high profit. Modern 150mph+ train service is stupid cheap and wildly profitable. At that speed you don't have many stops and the travel times are so short your crew labor costs are low. If you already own right-of-way your single most expensive and time-consuming blocker is a non-issue. So far Brightline and CA HSR are seemingly the only ones interested.
jcranmer 3y ago
> Are these all the railway tracks in the US or just the ones Amtrak operate with? The latter. Openrailwaymap.org has a better picture of all the track in the US, although it seems that the US has a very different ratio of main/branch track (which you can't see until you zoom in) than Europe does.
1-more 3y ago
Amtrak is the big interstate rail company. There are many small railroad that art more densely packed around a metro area or within one small state. For instance, you can get from Newark, DE to Springfield, MA entirely on regional trains: SEPTA from Newark, DE through Philadelphia, PA to Trenton, NJ; NJ Transit from Trenton to Penn Station in New York City; NYC subway from Penn Station to Grand Central Terminal (if you have a heavy luggage, otherwise just walk), Metro North from GCT to New Haven, CT; Hartford Line CT Rail from New Haven, CT to Springfield, MA. Each leg of that trip on a commuter train probably had 5 to 25 stops in between stations I mentioned, and each of those rail systems branches out in various directions to serve the commuters of that area getting into the cities I mention. Amtrak also runs about the same route with way fewer stops. The US used to be more rail dense. It still has the longest total railroad of any country in the world at 220k KM, but that's down from a peak of 408k KM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_transport_network_size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_tran... (a fair bit over one light-second, kinda cool).
- jcranmer 3y ago
  > Amtrak is the big interstate rail company. This is true only if you consider passenger rail. In terms of freight rail, the US has 6: Canadian Pacific (which recently acquired the 7th), Canadian National, Union Pacific, BNSF, CSX, and Norfolk Southern. Note that the smallest of these has more track than all but ~13 other countries, and the largest would be #4.
  - 1-more 3y ago
    yeah sorry I really should have said "big interstate passenger rail company."
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Too many Canadians in the US imo.
- rspoerri 3y ago
  Wikipedia might need an update. It‘s giving largely different numbers in different languages: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_L%C3%A4nder_nach_Eisenbahnnetz https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_L%C3%A4nder_nach_E... EU seems to have a longer railnet, bit US net is also longer in german wiki. Density ist nearly twice in EU.
pkaye 3y ago
Most of the lines are used for freight. https://www.aar.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/US-Freight-Rail-Map.jpg https://www.aar.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/US-Freight-Ra...
pantalaimon 3y ago
> For comparison, I found this map of European rails It also doesn't show all the rail connections, e.g. between Leizig and Chemnitz there is a direct hourly connection, albeit a notoriously poor one (only single track, non-electrified) that's not on the map. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leipzig%E2%80%93Geithain_railway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leipzig%E2%80%93Geithain_railw...
alexfoo 3y ago
That map of European rail lines is woefully inaccurate. It probably shows only 5% of rail lines in London for example, if that.

ceejayoz 3y ago

These are a minute fraction of the railroad tracks in the US. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Class1rr.png https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8b/Class1rr... shows the "Class I" railroads; just the big eight. There's a whole expansive set of Class II/III tracks. 160,000 miles total.

capableweb 3y ago
Thanks! I thought something looked amiss and seems a lot was.

bombcar 3y ago

That is just Amtrak and apparently just long distance Amtrak. Some commuter rail is operated by Amtrak but won’t appear I think. If you have money you can get a private passenger train almost anywhere there are tracks.

PopAlongKid 3y ago

Unfortunately except for the NEC (northeast corridor), Amtrak operates on rail lines owned by freight train operators. Technically the Amtrak passenger train has priority over freight, but one problem is that when one train needs to bypass another, the freight trains are often too long to fit on the siding, so the Amtrak train must wait instead.

organsnyder 3y ago
There's a segment in Michigan that was purchased by MDOT for passenger rail (Amtrak) use. There have been some improvements made for "high-speed" service. Not sure how common this is elsewhere.
- mmcconnell1618 3y ago
  Virginia bought a segment of track from CSX back in 2021 to update and improve availability of passenger service up towards DC: https://www.npr.org/local/305/2021/03/31/983044429/virginia-finalizes-3-7-billion-deal-to-acquire-tracks-from-c-s-x#:~:text=Virginia%20officials%20and%20freight%20railroad,in%20Virginia%20over%20the%20next https://www.npr.org/local/305/2021/03/31/983044429/virginia-...
- bombcar 3y ago
  It’s moderately common. The Pacific Surfliner runs on transit track in the LOSSAN corridor and it’s being improved.
xenadu02 3y ago
> the freight trains are often too long to fit on the siding This is a deliberate part of "precision scheduled railroading" which is neither precision nor scheduled. Management and investors believe railroads are in long-term decline so capital investments to improve capacity and/or speed are not done. The most important metric is the "operating ratio". If serving a new customer that adds $200m to profit would decrease the ratio by 2% the railroad will not serve the customer. So as part of this the railroad wants to minimize crew time. On a given section of track with passing sidings the railroad could move more cars by having three train crews going back and forth, creating conists just long enough to fit in the sidings. They could also extend the sidings to allow longer trains. Instead they reduce to two or even one crew and make longer consists. This often means one crew parks their train and leaves it for an entire day because they won't be able to pass the other train in the opposite direction. The crew has to take a taxi back home and leaves the train idle. Once the other train passes they or another crew comes back and resumes. It now takes 3 days to move the same number of cars it would have taken two before but over those three days the railroad only paid for 1.5 crew days instead of paying 3 crews over two days. Labor costs are reduced, operating ratio looks better, job done. I'll also point out that US railroad companies hate carrying passengers. They spent decades begging permission to discontinue passenger service, cooking books, refusing to sell tickets, etc so they could discontinue their passenger services. For example what is Caltrain used to run down to LA and was very profitable right up until the day they terminated service. edit: When management and investors punish railroads for trying to be a better railroad I don't know how you fix that brain damage. We seem stuck in an extremely sub-optimal local maxima.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  Isn't that just typical private equity investment, in every industry? Drain every ounce of blood from the body then leave the carcass.
  - xenadu02 3y ago
    Modern capitalism is definitely short-sighted but the railroads are uniquely bad in that regard. They could increase their business and keep marketshare away from road trucking without capital investment but they prioritize operating ratio instead. Every year there are fewer commercial facilities served by rail and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that railroads are in terminal decline. For sake of argument here are made-up numbers: If you can, by paying some additional labor, with no capex, increase profit by 30% even though operating ratio may slightly decrease while also protecting your business from competitors that is clearly something in the interests of shareholders. If the railroads were run like this I could explain their behavior as standard short-sightedness where they refuse to make the capex investments required to grow their business in the future. None of this gets into passenger rail service. I don't know that the US market would sustain anything like the numbers railroads did in their heyday but there are absolutely plenty of rail routes that would could have a sustainable and profitable business. With some minor capex they could even do high-speed passenger service to very high profit. Modern 150mph+ train service is stupid cheap and wildly profitable. At that speed you don't have many stops and the travel times are so short your crew labor costs are low. If you already own right-of-way your single most expensive and time-consuming blocker is a non-issue. So far Brightline and CA HSR are seemingly the only ones interested.

jcranmer 3y ago

> Are these all the railway tracks in the US or just the ones Amtrak operate with? The latter. Openrailwaymap.org has a better picture of all the track in the US, although it seems that the US has a very different ratio of main/branch track (which you can't see until you zoom in) than Europe does.

1-more 3y ago

Amtrak is the big interstate rail company. There are many small railroad that art more densely packed around a metro area or within one small state. For instance, you can get from Newark, DE to Springfield, MA entirely on regional trains: SEPTA from Newark, DE through Philadelphia, PA to Trenton, NJ; NJ Transit from Trenton to Penn Station in New York City; NYC subway from Penn Station to Grand Central Terminal (if you have a heavy luggage, otherwise just walk), Metro North from GCT to New Haven, CT; Hartford Line CT Rail from New Haven, CT to Springfield, MA. Each leg of that trip on a commuter train probably had 5 to 25 stops in between stations I mentioned, and each of those rail systems branches out in various directions to serve the commuters of that area getting into the cities I mention. Amtrak also runs about the same route with way fewer stops. The US used to be more rail dense. It still has the longest total railroad of any country in the world at 220k KM, but that's down from a peak of 408k KM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_transport_network_size https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_tran... (a fair bit over one light-second, kinda cool).

jcranmer 3y ago
> Amtrak is the big interstate rail company. This is true only if you consider passenger rail. In terms of freight rail, the US has 6: Canadian Pacific (which recently acquired the 7th), Canadian National, Union Pacific, BNSF, CSX, and Norfolk Southern. Note that the smallest of these has more track than all but ~13 other countries, and the largest would be #4.
- 1-more 3y ago
  yeah sorry I really should have said "big interstate passenger rail company."
- bombcar 3y ago
  Too many Canadians in the US imo.
rspoerri 3y ago
Wikipedia might need an update. It‘s giving largely different numbers in different languages: https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_L%C3%A4nder_nach_Eisenbahnnetz https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_L%C3%A4nder_nach_E... EU seems to have a longer railnet, bit US net is also longer in german wiki. Density ist nearly twice in EU.

pkaye 3y ago

Most of the lines are used for freight. https://www.aar.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/US-Freight-Rail-Map.jpg https://www.aar.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/US-Freight-Ra...

pantalaimon 3y ago

> For comparison, I found this map of European rails It also doesn't show all the rail connections, e.g. between Leizig and Chemnitz there is a direct hourly connection, albeit a notoriously poor one (only single track, non-electrified) that's not on the map. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leipzig%E2%80%93Geithain_railway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leipzig%E2%80%93Geithain_railw...

alexfoo 3y ago

That map of European rail lines is woefully inaccurate. It probably shows only 5% of rail lines in London for example, if that.