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> “We desperately need a law in this country to cap the length of a train,” Cassity says. “We need to know what too long is, and we need to know what the limit

> “We desperately need a law in this country to cap the length of a train,” Cassity says. “We need to know what too long is, and we need to know what the limit is going to be.” The big picture of the Risk Analysis study is correct, in his view: “They’re seeing the reality that long trains derail more often than shorter trains,” Cassity says. The limit should be whatever fits in the sidings on a track. It's ridiculous that the rail industry can handicap passenger rail by just increasing the length of the trains until they physically can't fit in the sidings. Then if they want to make their trains longer, they have to improve the infrastructure instead of putting pressure on everything and everyone except the shareholders' profits.

banannaise 2y ago
Misaligned incentives are killing what's left of rail in this country. There needs to be a serious reckoning... or just a straightforward law about how long you can make a train, either in absolute terms or relative to the sidings available.
- nradov 2y ago
  Do you mean killing passenger rail? Because despite some occasional derailments, freight rail is generally doing pretty well. There is certainly room for improvement and the system is a bit strained but volumes remain high. https://www.aar.org/data-center/rail-traffic-data/ https://www.aar.org/data-center/rail-traffic-data/
  - banannaise 2y ago
    Rail now accounts for less than 10% of domestic freight traffic by weight, and less than 15% that of truck. Considering how much more cost-efficient rail is (and how much cheaper the infrastructure is), that's pretty bad. It's a slow death, but rail freight remains flat at best while total freight continues to increase.
TylerE 2y ago
It also doesn’t address magnitudes. Quantity of freight is relatively fixed. If running trains half as long. Reduces derailments by 20%, you now have 60% more derailments, because you have twice as many trips. It is rare for more than a dozen or so cars to detail at one time.
- Erem 2y ago
  I wonder if they track the stat normalized by car-mile? That would at least account for them scenario you bring up
  - AlgorithmicTime 2y ago
    [dead]
- banannaise 2y ago
  This has already been accounted for. The article compares the total derailment risk between two 50-car trains and one 100-car train, which normalizes it per car-trip.
  - TylerE 2y ago
    It gives one measurement, and no information on how that tracks with size.
wannacboatmovie 2y ago
> It's ridiculous that the rail industry can handicap passenger rail by just increasing the length of the trains until they physically can't fit in the sidings. The freight carriers own the tracks and have priority, passenger rail are just mere guests. The alternative is the freight carriers tell them to f off. An analogy is the relationship between the cellular carriers (who own the digital rails) and MVNOs that ride on them; the MVNOs get deprioritized service.
- ddulaney 2y ago
  By law, passenger trains have priority in the US. This was part of the deal when the current freight railroads were established: remember that the US railroads as they exist today are largely the outcome of a series of Federal actions in the 80s and 90s. There hasn’t been enforcement of that rule, but it remains on the books.
- lkbm 2y ago
  This is 100% false. The agreement in which Amtrak was created to take over passenger service, allowing commercial railroads to prioritize freight, they were given precedent[0]. You might think the regulations leading to this agreement were bad, but this is the reality. Legally, the freight carriers do not have priority, and by law they cannot tell passenger rail to "f off". [0] https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/public/documents/corporate/HostRailroadReports/Amtrak-2022-Host-Railroad-Report-Card.pdf https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...
- throwup238 2y ago
  49 U.S. Code § 24308 (c) Preference Over Freight Transportation: > Except in an emergency, intercity and commuter rail passenger transportation provided by or for Amtrak has preference over freight transportation in using a rail line, junction, or crossing unless the Board orders otherwise under this subsection.... [1] [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/24308 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/24308
- jeffbee 2y ago
  > The alternative is the freight carriers tell them to f off. I am sure the owners of the railroads imagine themselves to be bootstrapping heroes of capitalism, but the deal when the United States created the railroads and gave them 175 million acres of land was that " ... the government shall at all times have the preference in the use of the same."
capitainenemo 2y ago
But long trains are far far more efficient than other alternatives for freight transport. Transporting more humans by rail is an inefficient use of rail capacity that increases use of truck transport which causes a lot of road damage and uses a lot more fossil fuels. Transporting humans by train makes a sense over shorter distances, over long ones, air transport has clearly won it in terms of convenience, and also helpfully frees up the rails for more environmentally friendly rail freight. Europe has a lot of passenger rail, and as a result, shorter freight trains, and more use of trucks for transport.
- Out_of_Characte 2y ago
  >Europe has a lot of passenger rail, and as a result, shorter freight trains, and more use of trucks for transport. You can't generalise european train networks because they are not monolithic at all. Netherlands, germany and france all have different networks that cannot interoperate. It's a mess for completely different reasons. Switzerland, for example, has one of the best passenger and train networks out there but you can't take a direct train from any european country to switzerland nevermind freight.
  - flessner 2y ago
    That's slowly being solved by ETCS to allow more interoperability, besides even within Germany there are drastic differences between city-wide, regional and long range services. There are also at least a couple connections from Germany to Basel, so I don't think the last point is entirely correct.
  - koziserek 2y ago
    That's strange, I often travel between Frankfurt and Basel..
    - CaptainZapp 2y ago
      And Zurich to Paris or Milan or Vienna or ...
- 2y ago
Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago
Forgive my ignorance, what are the sidings?
- cx0der 2y ago
  Along the main line you will have parallel tracks that slower trains will pull into allowing faster trains to overtake.
  - Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago
    Oh I see, I didn't know their name. Yes 100%
  - falcolas 2y ago
    Not just overtake, but the sidings also allow trains to operate in both directions on the same rail. When you have a mega-train running west-east, all east-west trains must pull off on the sidings so the mega-train can pass.

banannaise 2y ago

Misaligned incentives are killing what's left of rail in this country. There needs to be a serious reckoning... or just a straightforward law about how long you can make a train, either in absolute terms or relative to the sidings available.

nradov 2y ago
Do you mean killing passenger rail? Because despite some occasional derailments, freight rail is generally doing pretty well. There is certainly room for improvement and the system is a bit strained but volumes remain high. https://www.aar.org/data-center/rail-traffic-data/ https://www.aar.org/data-center/rail-traffic-data/
- banannaise 2y ago
  Rail now accounts for less than 10% of domestic freight traffic by weight, and less than 15% that of truck. Considering how much more cost-efficient rail is (and how much cheaper the infrastructure is), that's pretty bad. It's a slow death, but rail freight remains flat at best while total freight continues to increase.

TylerE 2y ago

It also doesn’t address magnitudes. Quantity of freight is relatively fixed. If running trains half as long. Reduces derailments by 20%, you now have 60% more derailments, because you have twice as many trips. It is rare for more than a dozen or so cars to detail at one time.

Erem 2y ago
I wonder if they track the stat normalized by car-mile? That would at least account for them scenario you bring up
- AlgorithmicTime 2y ago
  [dead]
banannaise 2y ago
This has already been accounted for. The article compares the total derailment risk between two 50-car trains and one 100-car train, which normalizes it per car-trip.
- TylerE 2y ago
  It gives one measurement, and no information on how that tracks with size.

wannacboatmovie 2y ago

> It's ridiculous that the rail industry can handicap passenger rail by just increasing the length of the trains until they physically can't fit in the sidings. The freight carriers own the tracks and have priority, passenger rail are just mere guests. The alternative is the freight carriers tell them to f off. An analogy is the relationship between the cellular carriers (who own the digital rails) and MVNOs that ride on them; the MVNOs get deprioritized service.

ddulaney 2y ago
By law, passenger trains have priority in the US. This was part of the deal when the current freight railroads were established: remember that the US railroads as they exist today are largely the outcome of a series of Federal actions in the 80s and 90s. There hasn’t been enforcement of that rule, but it remains on the books.
lkbm 2y ago
This is 100% false. The agreement in which Amtrak was created to take over passenger service, allowing commercial railroads to prioritize freight, they were given precedent[0]. You might think the regulations leading to this agreement were bad, but this is the reality. Legally, the freight carriers do not have priority, and by law they cannot tell passenger rail to "f off". [0] https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/public/documents/corporate/HostRailroadReports/Amtrak-2022-Host-Railroad-Report-Card.pdf https://www.amtrak.com/content/dam/projects/dotcom/english/p...
throwup238 2y ago
49 U.S. Code § 24308 (c) Preference Over Freight Transportation: > Except in an emergency, intercity and commuter rail passenger transportation provided by or for Amtrak has preference over freight transportation in using a rail line, junction, or crossing unless the Board orders otherwise under this subsection.... [1] [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/24308 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/49/24308
jeffbee 2y ago
> The alternative is the freight carriers tell them to f off. I am sure the owners of the railroads imagine themselves to be bootstrapping heroes of capitalism, but the deal when the United States created the railroads and gave them 175 million acres of land was that " ... the government shall at all times have the preference in the use of the same."

capitainenemo 2y ago

But long trains are far far more efficient than other alternatives for freight transport. Transporting more humans by rail is an inefficient use of rail capacity that increases use of truck transport which causes a lot of road damage and uses a lot more fossil fuels. Transporting humans by train makes a sense over shorter distances, over long ones, air transport has clearly won it in terms of convenience, and also helpfully frees up the rails for more environmentally friendly rail freight. Europe has a lot of passenger rail, and as a result, shorter freight trains, and more use of trucks for transport.

Out_of_Characte 2y ago
>Europe has a lot of passenger rail, and as a result, shorter freight trains, and more use of trucks for transport. You can't generalise european train networks because they are not monolithic at all. Netherlands, germany and france all have different networks that cannot interoperate. It's a mess for completely different reasons. Switzerland, for example, has one of the best passenger and train networks out there but you can't take a direct train from any european country to switzerland nevermind freight.
- flessner 2y ago
  That's slowly being solved by ETCS to allow more interoperability, besides even within Germany there are drastic differences between city-wide, regional and long range services. There are also at least a couple connections from Germany to Basel, so I don't think the last point is entirely correct.
- koziserek 2y ago
  That's strange, I often travel between Frankfurt and Basel..
  - CaptainZapp 2y ago
    And Zurich to Paris or Milan or Vienna or ...
2y ago

Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago

Forgive my ignorance, what are the sidings?

cx0der 2y ago
Along the main line you will have parallel tracks that slower trains will pull into allowing faster trains to overtake.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 2y ago
  Oh I see, I didn't know their name. Yes 100%
- falcolas 2y ago
  Not just overtake, but the sidings also allow trains to operate in both directions on the same rail. When you have a mega-train running west-east, all east-west trains must pull off on the sidings so the mega-train can pass.