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Wait, what right of way does Amtrak lease from freight carriers? They outright own the Northeast Corridor and tracks as far west as Harrisburg, PA. I think they
by gaadd33 11y ago
Wait, what right of way does Amtrak lease from freight carriers? They outright own the Northeast Corridor and tracks as far west as Harrisburg, PA. I think they lease some bits of track from various state department of transportation and they obviously have trackage rights with the various freight carriers.
The NTSB seems to have higher standards for railroads than elsewhere in the world, that's one reason why we can't just import high speed trainsets, pretty much every other passenger rail car is much lighter and less sturdy than ours. I think much of that is due to our rail system handling both freight and passenger traffic.
- osi 11y agoYes, the NTSB requires any passenger rail car that is on a train network that is somehow connected to rail that carries freight to be built to standards for collisions with freight traffic. This is ridiculous, because it means we can't import those high speed trainsets, even in the northeast corridor, where the tracks are Amtrak-owned, and do not see freight traffic, just because the rails do link to the freight network.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago> Wait, what right of way does Amtrak lease from freight carriers? Well, everywhere west of Harrisburg and south of DC, Amtrak runs on the right of way of freight railroads. That isn't "lease" exactly, but Amtrak pays to use those tracks, which is essentially the same thing.
- gaadd33 11y agoRight, that's called trackage rights and are given priority time slots over freight trains. However when the slot is missed then the trains are treated as any other freight.