this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2024
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Nah Amtrak is awesome. They are just hamstrung by govt
Privatisation isn't the answer.
Oh I immediately thought hamstrung like how the education, healthcare, and mail systems are hamstrung by a government that refuses to invest in them
Yeah exactly, that’s what I meant! Everyone is ignoring the context of what I’m replying to. Amtrak needs more funding. But they do pretty good with what they got.
They also need to be given priority over freight rail, instead of the other way around like it is now. Plus the super-long freight trains they're using unsafely mean they can't use existing sidings.
My understanding is that passenger trains always had priority over freight. The long freight trains are their way around giving priority. Can't give priority if you're too long to give it
Yeah, I'm 90% sure you're right. Legally Amtrak gets priority when possible, so freight companies just make it impossible to sidetrack so Amtrak has to. It's bullshit, but it's not like our government is going to stop them.
yeah this is an easy fix to improve the service 100x, almost overnight. outside of the northwest the main reason people give me for not using the train as legit transportation is the fact that they are often egregiously late.
That’s not what I said.
Okay! Seemed a little ambiguous. I hear people still claim that rail should be privatised because "the government doesn't know how to run a business".
More like deliberately crippled by the private freight railroads that own the tracks. Ones that the government bailed out multiple times mind you, yet they're shamelessly resisting the government's attempts to provide a public service.
...You think they'll choose to keep passenger lines running if they aren't forced to?
I think they’ll expand in a heartbeat with more government funding