Amtrak is streaming an empty railroad on Twitch

For comparison, the Elizabeth line (Crossrail) under London will launch with 12 trains per hour (one every five minutes) and will eventually go to 24 trains per hour during peaks. CSX says 8-10 through trains <i>per day</i> use this route, plus 1-3 &quot;coal and grain&quot; trains and &quot;numerous&quot; local services. The reported scarcity of trains on the stream matches this.<p>Now of course much of the route Amtrak wants to use is single track, which is especially a problem for freight trains since they&#x27;re so long that only very long purpose made sidings can possibly allow them to pass. But on the other hand it&#x27;s also notable that CSX insists daytime is &quot;peak&quot; for freight and that doesn&#x27;t make much sense. Since passengers mostly want to travel in daytime, it makes sense to shift freight to the night, not schedule all the freight for daytime and then insist that passengers be re-scheduled instead.

&gt; <i>Between 8 a.m. and 12:49 Central Time, Amtrak says it counted three trains on CSX’s tracks.</i><p>&gt; <i>After publication, in response to a Motherboard request for comment, CSX dismissed the Amtrak stunt. “It takes a freight train about 8-10 hours to travel between New Orleans and Mobile,” a CSX spokesperson said in a statement. “Focusing on one point of a line that traverses approximately 138 single track miles, major ports and Interchange points and then purporting that it is indicative of the operational realities of the entire line is grossly misleading. Anyone that understands railroad operations, including Amtrak, would know that.”</i><p>So CSX argues the entire 138 mile track would be blocked if there is a single train travelling anywhere on it?<p>Efficiency!

The government should build its own line. Its no joke to delay a cargo shipment, there are tons of penalties built into those contracts. As a railroad, you have a very specific timing on when your train needs to arrive, and the people doing the loading need to have it loaded in a set time period. Frankly, given diesel prices, cargo is much more important than people at this point.<p>Perhaps the government will be looking to add some tracks or dedicated bus lines the next time it funds a highway project. This demonizing of cargo when its absolutely needed in the US is just stupid.

&gt; By law, Amtrak’s passenger trains also have priority over freight traffic. But in practice this doesn’t happen...<p>Yeah, no kidding! I&#x27;ve always understood the relevant law to be the other way around - granted, this based mostly on what I&#x27;ve heard from other Northeast Regional passengers while we&#x27;re sitting at a dead stop waiting for a load of orange juice or something to get the hell out of the way, as seems reliably to happen at least once per trip.

In India both freight and train services are government owned and are part of same network. Revenue from freight subsidises passenger services which run in losses [1]. But in general passenger service is given preference over freight every day. Hence there are some serious delays in freight service. So government is building these special double electric lines across country especially designed for freight called as dedicated freight corridors [2].<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;timesofindia.indiatimes.com&#x2F;india&#x2F;railways-earning-from-freight-movement-sees-24-increase&#x2F;articleshow&#x2F;89025564.cms" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;timesofindia.indiatimes.com&#x2F;india&#x2F;railways-earning-f...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=mSsRmbUnvK4" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=mSsRmbUnvK4</a>

I think the easiest solution would be tie all infrastructure funds railroads receive with the delays Amtrak incurred on their tracks due to freight trains. Do it to many times and you lose out all funding for the rest of the year.<p>Trying to block Amtrak from services should automatically incur a funding pause for those tracks.

Most of the leading comments are justified with an implicit tautology: “passenger rail is needed so badly because passenger rail”.<p>This suggests a belief that typical Americans are dumbasses for preferring other forms of transportation, so they need elites to force them into what’s best for them.<p>The American rail system is focusing on what rail does best: haul heavy freight. When you emphasize passenger rail use, you’ve switched to an inefficient use of rail to appease hardliners.

First of all, I love trains. I&#x27;ve taken more than one trip across the continent (N. Am.) and it&#x27;s incredibly fun, and you see so much of the country, and meet so many interesting (and annoying sometimes, sure) people. I recommend it wholeheartedly.<p>That said, passenger train travel makes about as much economic sense as riding in a horse-and-carriage. It&#x27;s <i>romantic</i> but it&#x27;s technologically obsolete.<p>That&#x27;s why freight trains get priority over passenger trains (despite what the law says on the books) because there&#x27;s no economic incentive and little political will to do otherwise.

&#x27;is streaming&#x27; is a bit generous or premature; at present Amtrak have only posted 3 videos, 30-60 seconds each, all 4 days ago.

New Orleans has a population about 400k, Mobile 200k, it&#x27;s 140 miles.<p>That should be an hour long trip with 1-2 trains an hour

I really don&#x27;t see rail expanding in the US in my lifetime for many reasons, including our national debt, the loss of the dollar&#x27;s reserve status, the similar functionality provided by trucking (negative externalities like pollution, shared cost of road upkeep, and employment levels notwithstanding), the right of way vs NIMBYISM of expanding rail and running extra lines, and finally the inability to complete infrastructure projects in the US on time, in budget, and with quality. I am just not optimistic about any of this.

Yep, try to catch an Amtrak out of Phoenix and you have to drive about an hour to Maricopa instead of the old train station downtown because of them not getting priority over freight traffic.

The tracks that Caltrain uses between San Francisco and San Jose are shared with Union Pacific freight trains, and that works.<p>Does anyone know what kind of freight Union Pacific hauls to&#x2F;from San Francisco? Mostly late at night?

This whole thing kind of ignores the fact that the rail companies own these lines and Amtrak doesn&#x27;t want to pay them enough to make it worth their while.

I have always wondered why a startup never tried to build single car electric trains on the miles of idle already paid for track.

But why Twitch? Seems like YouTube would be the place to get eyeballs on this, if not in place of Twitch, along with it.

What Amtrak should actually be doing is closing down all it&#x27;s long distance routes followed by privatizing it so it can profitably run it&#x27;s short haul lines.

How screwed are commercial rail companies going to be when coal finally phases out?<p>What will replace that space or will their revenue just slowly drop?

Stream is down... looks like Amtrak has already given up.

Dumb question but why can’t they just tack on passenger carts to freight trains?

I’ve got an absolutely bonkers idea: add two or three passenger cars to the freight trains<p>Edit: Not sure why I’m being downvoted. This was a thing for a long time. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Mixed_train" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Mixed_train</a>

For the specific case of the Capitol Corridor (Sacramento - San Jose), the government should just sieze the line from the freight companies, and use imminent domain to run freight lines from the port of Oakland out to less densely populated areas. As it is, freight trains run through the pedestrian areas of Jack London Square.<p>The should also straighten the lines in the areas near Fremont so the train could run at at least 180mph.<p>Then, they should run the Amtrak every 15 minutes within metro areas.<p>Instead, they did the BART extension.

Isn&#x27;t Amtrak a government-run operation? Why is it &quot;beefing?&quot; Why is everything so stupidly infantilized these days?