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To address one point I saw: US passenger rail has signaling priority over freight, by law [http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/49/V/C/243/24308 http://codes.lp.f
by syncsynchalt 13y ago
To address one point I saw: US passenger rail has signaling priority over freight, by law [http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/49/V/C/243/24308 http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/49/V/C/243/24308]. The law is just not enforced.
The US has arguably the best freight rail system in the world, and it seems like a lot of the problems with US passenger rail stem from that.
- saalweachter 13y agoI was actually just looking this up. Judging by the numbers on Wikipedia, US rail freight is about 10x per capita the EU's, while US passenger rail is about 1/10th per capita compared to the EU.
- eru 13y agoI remember the Economist had a lengthy special report on rail freight in the US a while ago.
- Crito 13y agoI don't know if this is true or not, but I have heard that most of the US's rail is unsuitable for passenger travel because it is unsuitable for speeds that would make passenger travel reasonable. With freight it doesn't matter so much since the name of the game is moving lots of things cheap, not moving things fast.
- m_mueller 13y agoSee, there's a simple solution to that as the Japanese show: Build more rails. Their bullet train system has a separate rail covering the whole main island of Honshu.