The map you showed about the European rail network only displays the "highspeed" mainline tracks. Obviously there are many more tracks for regional trains.
@@isaacparadis7951 The US has a network length of 293584 Km. The European Union (Not Russia…) has 230548 Km. So the Us has a comparable length, not twice as much. That does not change the fact of the map being misleading.
@@unconventionalideas5683 Well most parts are owned by amtrak. The rest is owned by Massachusetts Department of Transportation, Connecticut Department of Transportation and Metro-North Railroad. Mass. and Conn. DOT are owned by their states and Metro-North is owned by MTA which is owned by State of New York. So the whole corridor is owned by goverment, some parts by the federal one, some parts by the local one.
Its slower, but its way more fun, relaxed and a much nicer vibe than flying. Saves a couple bucks too. Regular on the Amtrak Capitol Limited, Empire Builder and the michigan services here. Ride metra for everything else closer to home. Commute on the L. Barely drive my truck
@@OnyxtheFolf Silver Meteor, Cardinal, and Auto-Train for me. But I have been to as far NW as Seattle, as far East as Boston, NOLA, Birmingham, Chicago, Denver, Glacier National Park, and Yellowstone by private passenger railcar.
Twice as big as european rail network doesnt mean much when you realise that america is 80x the size of most of the countries, and texas is 2x the size of the uk
@stevenroshni1228 But you also have to take in population density. The EU is super dense, while the US has something like 5 acres for every person. Passenger trains just don't make sense in the US.
Why does this matter? Bigger is bigger, why does it matter? It’s a great point that the us has the worlds largest railroad system but it’s all owned by freight train companies
the Acela can’t use the “100 year old” tracks because the only area in the US with electrified tracks, that use catenaries, are located in the northeast corridor in which the passenger trains have the right-of-way
That is factually incorrect. There are many places in the US that utilize overhead wire, I can literally look out my back window at one. Acela operates on the track it does because that is what's available in the very dense costal northeast.
Amtrak has right of way in law only. In practice rail companies will just pay the fine and give freight preference. The reason electification has made so little progress is it's an actual investment that cost-cutting corporations balk at because they'd rather chase profit while letting track rot and trains derail.
I believe most of the NEC is owned and operated by Amtrak and there's limited freight service along that. Or if freight runs there, it's going to be off peak times
@@D4cked Good luck electrifying rail with world wide copper shortages. And besides the enormous capital investment of putting up poles and wires, the railroad companies would then have to buy hundreds of new electric locomotives, which cost more than diesel locomotives. The tens of billions spent on that would trickle down through the supply chain and the result would be higher prices on everything you can imagine. Maintenance on railroads is better than you think, but like everything else, things do break. And the number of train derailments is nowhere near what they were just 40-50 years ago. These days, there are around 1,000 derailments a year, the vast majority of which are low speed yard derailments. Back then, there were up to 8,000 derailments per year. Moving freight in timely fashion is what keeps the economy moving. Slow down freight and you have supply chain issues. And depending on what is being moved, a 100 car freight train takes 200 - 400+ semi trucks off of the road. An average of 54,000,000 tons of freight move every day on the rails.
The NE Corridor from DC to Boston is dedicated to passenger rail only. Acela doesn’t run on freight lines. Also, the track is constantly upgraded, it’s not 100 years old. The speed limit is a government restriction and the fact that too many stops are required.
It's upgraded as per things like positive controls, but there are too many sharp curves that (other than say Camden, NJ + a few other locations) don't allow the acela (gens 1 and 2) to REALLY take advantage of their speed capabilities.
@SpheroJr3289 You are absolutely correct. Especially between New Rochelle, NY, and New Haven, Connecticut, Amtrak shares its rails with at least 2 regional freight services, as well as the Metro North Commuter Rail service. And from New York to DC, you deal with NJ Transit and MARTA.
@@avatarinumyes but they must yield to passenger trains since the freight railroads don’t own the trackage. Others are supposed to by law and while some are good at following the law such as bnsf and up, others disregard it or are outright hostile to passenger trains like cpkc.
It bothers me when people say shit like that too, like yeah there's been track there for 190 years, doesn't mean it's the same track concrete ties is relatively new to the NEC right though?
@@TheLegoTrainStation Nah a good chunk of the track on some parts of the NEC are quite old. Maybe not 100 years old but definitely looking at half a century and above. But the real point is that even though the tracks might've been replaced, they're still running the same curves and gradients that their predecessors and so it's still not all that conducive to hsr.
Having just taken a bunch of rides in the shinkansen 🚄 bullet train in Japan, I just have to say the US needs a network of these! So fast, smooth, quiet and comfortable. Great alternative to flying and lots of legroom. Going 160 mph on the ground for hours is unreal!
The whole reason why American passenger trains are the way they are is because originally the freight railroads operated passenger trains but saw a huge decline in traffic for passengers in the 60s. To stop the railroads going bust, Amtrak came into existence. If passenger trains were more profitable then the freight railroads would’ve kept them operating and had them take priority over freight.
@@jst1man If passenger service was profitable, it would be readily available. Follow the money. US passengers would rather drive (inbred in our genetics) or fly. Trains just don't go to near as many places as the other modes go to. Culture, in this case, is a big factor in the need or desire for trains.
@jst1man I mean, they built/bought the track and holds the balls of the US economy in their palm. You piss them off, they will crush it. Not to mention that are supported by the US Government themselves.
This guy got most of this stuff wrong. As a Railfan this makes me very annoyed. The northeast corridor is owned entirely by Amtrak and freight is a rare occurrence and the Acela is going 110mph for about 80% of the route
It's complete garbage. Most trains are very slow. Something constantly breaks, and they can't handle even a little weather. HS2 is nowhere near finished, and train tickets are so expensive between cities most people choose to fly, say London to Edinburgh
The reason the Acela exists is because the section of track which it runs on is in fact owned completely by Amtrak. Truly, Amtrak is not a bad railroad (their money spending choices are absurd), but they simply have to comply with freight conditions everywhere but the NEC
In the UK it's the opposite - passenger trains have priority. Freight trains mostly run during the evening and overnight when passenger demand is lowest. Stick around any major UK railway station (that's not a terminus, obviously) an hour or two after rush hour and you can see freight trains rumbling through all night. Also maintenance trains (which inspect the track) run during the evenings as well.
I wonder if it has anything to do with the much greater distances that items are shipped by rail in the US. Major cities and manufacturing centers are much more spread out. It's expensive to bring the trains up to speed and slow them down all the time. Maybe it ends up being more efficient overall given the different environment. Passenger trains stop frequently in comparison I believe. Maybe?
Private Industry INVESTED $800B. Amtrak was FUNDED (aka...taxpayer funded) $30B. In other words, anything the government gets involved with gets exponentially more expensive and goes to shit.
Actually, quick correction, Amtrak trains have legal priority over any freight service. The problem is that when those two need to pass each other the passing track is too short for the 3 mile long freight train. So what happens is your train either rams into another, or you're forced to wait. With Norfolk Southern's incident in East Palestine, trains have been getting shorter on their tracks, and it's seeming that Precision Scheduled Railroading may be coming to a close. However, I fear that there must be more tragedies such as the East Palestine derailment for the Federal Railroad Administration to finally wake the fuck up and hold class 1 railroads responsible for their dangerous choices.
@@fatboy158 that's been a proposition for a long time, but with how America likes to function, our capitalistic beliefs dictate that there shouldn't be government-run businesses in America. I think the most real solution is for the FRA to finally bring the hammer down and knock these increasingly dangerous operations on the head. Who knows what they're gonna try after one man crews? Removing crossing gates?
@@OnyxtheFolf I don’t see why them being Florida-based is an issue. Its unfortunate that it is based in Florida, yet I’m not sure of any major problems spurring from if.
@@OnyxtheFolfwell just as long as they dont do some "Florida man" bs they should be ok. 😂 On a serious note.... why is it a problem if theyre florida based?
If you should have any problem with Brightline, it should be with the amount of government grants and funds they got for a "privately funded" line. Other than that, the east coast line seems to be good for what it is and I hope it becomes profitable quickly to expand and work on the west coast lines.
Acela operates on the NE corridor that is mostly owned by Amtrak, many other lines are owned by commuter transit authorities like MTA or NJDot. The NE corridor has a lot of stops and stations and parts of the line host a lot of commuter trains but fundamentally this is a 150 year old railroad designed originally to go about 30 mph that was supersonic back then so the only way to go 150 for the whole route would be to build any entirely new railway. Good luck with that.
Yeah nah don’t listen to this guy mate. Yes there is shit on the streets in certain areas of the city where homeless are abundant, it is a problem. But I’m sure you saw many landmarks you’ll never forget and had amazing views from certain spots as well. He’s an example of a silly American so don’t listen to him.
1) that map is misleading as it shows only a few high speed trains, and no regional trains 2) all European train networks are integrated between nations 3) this covers a landmass that is bigger than the entire US surface area 4) many train operators service in multiple countries 5) people that take the train ALSO own/drive a car, you choose what's more convenient, train can be much quicker 6) the fact that US train travels sucks is purely political decisions, not circumstances
Fun fact! Amtrak is actually supposed to be given priority when encountering freight, *however,* freight consists today are too long for the sidings/bypasses that the freight trains are supposed to wait on, so Amtrak always ends up being _forced_ to wait.
It's actually a congressional act that states freight companies are supposed to prioritize Amtrak traffic. However, Congress doesn't enforce it. One more reason why we need term limits in Congress and campaign finance reforms.
for the rest of the world who uses metric: 155mph is *about 250kph* I've heard that most bullet trains these days usually run closer to 300kph, that one train line in China ran 400kph at some point, and the current world record holder for fastest train is the TGV Duplex in France running above 500kph.
BrightLine is doomed to failure. Nobody rides it anyway, everyone rides their car or flies. Once the investors leave the BrightLine project, the whole system will fail. It's called a "real estate scheme"
FYI Amtrak owns most of the eastern tracks they run. Freight share time one these but are not prioritized. The trouble is that not much of the track is suitable for higher speed. Much of it because of routing, such as proximities to objects, turns are to sharp, and they cross roads instead of going over or under. You cannot do high speed rail that intersect roadways directly for safety reasons.
In Canada, passenger trains sometimes get priority and sometimes get higher speed limits depending on the area. VIA Rail rents the CN rail line. Yet the passenger rail service is far in between and is seen more as a luxury than a commodity. (A 6 hour drive is 13 hours by train) That's the situation in BC. Due to the rocky mountains, the trains go at a slow speed for quite a lot of their journey. In the farming area of Canada, the population is spread out. Only routes that actually would be profitable would be Vancouver Toronto Edmonton Calgary Yet , it's just cheaper and quicker to fly.
In the UK, passenger services take priority over freight but tracks are not owned by either. They're owned by a separate company called Network Rail. However, this is all going to change as we become GBR (Great British Railways).
But Blanche there are tracks that old, not every track owner has enough traffic to maintain each and every mile.. here in a rural town, there are 2 crossings, between them a siding is formed, which in the 2.5 years I've lived here Iowa Interstate passes through multiple times daily, and not slowing down either, and the nearest I've seen maintenance on any of their tracks is 20 miles away in the vicinity of their yard.
@@chalkylover The Northeast Corridor where the Acela runs was entirely re-tracked aside from some bridges and tunnels between 2000-Present and is actively replacing bridges and building new tunnels. The only grade crossings on the line are a handful in coastal Connecticut. Tracks were upgraded to permit the highest speeds possible, and what limits speeds on the line aside from congestion is track curvature not the infrastructure itself
I live by the Roseville yard and have taken Amtrak to Reno and this not true. Same tracks as freight. Same from Emeryville to Sacramento, shared tracks.
Mostly correct. The issue with high speed rail for Acela, a lot is old tracks that have a lot of tight curves that cannot be fixed without demolition to bridges and existing infrastructure.
@@Bugm-kn9svthat, and what politician is going to get reelected after backing a $20 billion dollar infrastructure improvement package, when it turns into a $200 billion boondoggle that takes 10 times as long to complete as projected and accomplishes a third of what was promised? The kickbacks will be sweet, sure, but it would be political suicide. They know as well as we do that that is exactly how it will turn out
@@rohtati1020The US government definitely has the funds to pay for it, they’d just rather spend it on other things that don’t necessarily help the population
A bit of a correction. Legally, Amtrak passenger trains get priority over freight, however due to precision scheduled railroading (PSR) freight trains are now too long to fit in the sidings/passing tracks, so they physically need to go first.
You're correct ,the last time i took an am- trac train the passenger train had to wait twice to give the freight train the right of way which was very time consuming !
It's a layout that's 100 years old, therfor it runs trains with speeds matching those 100 yearq ago. Except that they tend to be even slower because it's modern american rail.
I got stuck for 52 hours on Amtrak in the middle of a polar vortex in The center of Glacier National park because a freight train derailed one car in a tunnel ahead of us. It made my 1 day trip take a week because after the storm hours they sent out replacement workers due to over time,and they then got replaced with another crew. Once it all cleared they sent us on a “replacement” bus that back tracked 4 hours to the closest city to then transfer us to other busses to then take us to Portland. Then we got a hotel room and a cheap breakfast and shuttled onto another train to finish the trip which didn’t go all the way through so had to hop on another 2 busses to finish the trip. Totally week long nightmare for what was supposed to be a 1 day trip.
Actually, the vast majority of the Japanese dedicated HSR track is built to the 160 mph standard. So even if the new trainsets can technically go 186, 200, or 220 mph, the track speed is still limited to 150-160 mph. They standardized on that speed so the entire network tends to run at 160 mph with the exception of only a few faster and a few slower lines. And even the new track that they build in Japan these days tends to be 160 mph. For example, their last two HSR projects, as well as the two new projects now under construction are all 160 mph limited. This is all publicly available information, btw. I encourage you to read about it.
@@usernameaeaeaea The freight moves at about the same speed in both countries. The local/commuter trains are faster, but not by much. It's specifically the Shinkansen network that is a good 20-30% faster than the Acela on average. But I feel like a loooooot of US railfans are utterly surprised and even shocked that the Shinkansen is not in fact 300% faster than the Acela. If you look at the top speeds of most Shinkansen lines and their average speeds it becomes more apparent why that is the case. But I still feel like it's important to realize that the Acela exists, it's in the US, and is on par with the average Shinkansen line in terms of both top and average speeds. Misinformation helps no one.
i remember the one time i tried amtrak and losing a day of travel in the station where i was told the delay was between 45 minutes to 12 hours and we wouldn't know exactly until the minute we boarded
I did hear that amtrak was working on a new high speed train system, with new trainsets that are actually a form of the famous french TGVs called the avelia liberty, and hope to see it running soon if bureaucracy doesnt get in the way
@@marcbuisson2463 Yeah they still have to use the old train tracks that were possibly over some decades so that sucks. I am also excited for the california high speed and the new brightline high speed, so hopefully those might make it
Yeah because America is capitalist the companies bought land to make money by transporting things the same way as bus companies and taxi companies are privately owned also you shouldn’t let the American government do anything because they screw it up
When the railroads were first built, if people waited around for the government to take the initiative and build tracks for them, nothing would’ve ever happened.
Thank God. The US would never have grown the way it did without private capital building our railroads. Even if the government was competent, it didn't have even a tiny fraction of the money required. Lots of the early funding came from London, ironically enough
@@robertmoffett3486im like 80% sure most our rail was built because of goverment subsides that gave a large swath of land surrounding the rails to the companies that built them. Basicly paying them to build rails
Amtrak owns the section where the alcea and its called the northeastern corridor and yes some of it is over one hundred years old but they are currently improving the tracks around New York City
I actually think trains might be the answer for a lot of scoio-economic issues. The US needs more trains, light rails, just more fast public transportation.
No joke. Just throw rail between closee by major cities in the us. The economic boom would be insane... except for the car and car dealers. Guess who owns congress....
We went from Atlanta to New Orleans when I was 14 in the mid 70's. I think everyone should take a train somewhere on a trip at least once in their lives.
America: at least 10 times the distance you have to travel to get to places compared to Europe This guy: *tHe Us rAiLwAy SyStEm iS tWiCe aS lOnG aS tHe EuRoPeAn oNe*
If I understand you correctly, you are basically saying you have to travel to get to a Amtrak station, you could be right, look at Iowa, Kansas and Missouri, not every larger city has a stop, Des Moines has to go to Osceola, mostly there's no (passenger) trains in Iowa above Hwy 34, Missouri mostly either you travel along the Mississippi or wiggle to Kansas City, once as Kansas City heading across Kansas, it avoids Wichita by going through Hutchinson and Newton a hour away, of course at 3 AM at unmanned stations that won't get you anyplace quality by 8 to do business Amtrak has so many ONCE A DAY routes it's not feasible for regular use, so they complain they are at a loss all the time, well, consider frequency and tardiness, people don't have extra days to wait for missed connections on their vacations, and in many locations have to lug their luggage by walking to a hotel, (not all stops have taxis or even busses) because Amtrak was late, full etc, and have to pay themselves.. take a weeks vacation on Amtrak, you might as well plan on $1000 added expenses, caused by Amtrak
Menwhile Brazil: you only get freight railroads in some places, trucks and buses can do the rest of the work (spoiler: they do but for twice the price)
@@huntercoleherrthey do but considering the size of the US, transporting goods and raw materials from east to west and vice versa is what keeps the economy alive. So huge in fact that when the railroad workers went on strike, biden had to mediate a deal or else the economy would stagnate.
@@Man_of_Various_Cultures I confess I really don't know much about US rail. Are there high-speed rails available for the freight trains? It feels like there should be as they are so essential to the economy. (That sounds snarky but it isn't, I'm actually asking for information here.)
@@huntercoleherr no, our railways are old and cant reliably support really fast trains. As for high speed rail for freight trains, you should really look up how big US freight trains are(about 4000 Us tons and 6500 feet long), hell some of them require multiple locomotives to even move, much less travel at high speeds. Do you know how long it takes for a fully loaded tractor-trailer(about 40 us tons and 72 feet long) to come to a complete stop? Imagine that but multiplied by 100. There is no such thing as high speed when it comes to US freight trains. Sorry if this sounded condescending, i only wish to expand your knowledge, i mean no harm.
Nah, it can be profitable under the right circumstances, The US just doesn't meet that in many areas. Freight rail can be unprofitable as well, It's not used nearly as heavy in Europe as the number of port cities is much higher allowing quite a bit of bulk transport to be done by ship. The US while having a bunch of port cities, the fact that it is much more rectangular of a country with really ports being possible on about 1/3 to 1/2 of its borders makes a lot of population centers thousands of miles from a port.
@@calvingreene90he Japanese railway is profitable, dutch railway is profitable, swiss railway is profitable etc. Car infrastructure is unprofitable not trains they have literally bankrupted cities like deteoit
@@JimmyJr630 Cities like Detroit are bankrupt because of decades of Democrat missmanagement. Before the democrats took over Detroit was one of the richest cities in the world. Imagine that subsidized railroads making a profit.
This is incorrect. The acela actually reaches speeds of over 110 mph 80% of the route. The other 20% is penn stations, and station approaches. Also, 80% of the US Freight Shares it’s stock with Amtrak.
@@railworksamerica what is a regular train? High speed rail (which is what Amtrak is attempting to do) in most other countries easily reach speeds of 180-200 mph
@@regulate.artificer_g23.mdctlskOnly a few select railroads did that, the interstate highways and airplanes seriously damaged ridership numbers across the entire country.
American people also banded together to stop public transport working properly, because they are stupid and believe lublic transport losing money is bad.
Yes, the new Alstom Avelia Liberty is actually a French TGV M that can easily reach 320 km/h (200 mph). But the Alstom Avelia Liberty will only reach that speed in France because France has high-speed lines that are capable of 320 km/h (200 mph). Sadly the Alstom Avelia Liberty can never reach a speed of 320 km/h (200 mph) in the USA because there are simply no high-speed lines in the USA yet that are capable of such high-speeds. And i'm afraid that the USA will still have no proper high-speed lines before the year 2050.
Well the Northeast Corridor which the Acela runs on is entirely owned by Amtrak. So freight is a rare occurrence and happens in a few small stretches of the corridor most with low passenger frequency.
Well, actually, Metro-North just runs on it between Grand Central in New Haven. Metro north only owns the portion between New Rochelle and Grand Central. So Amtrak still owns it.
the US track sits at 220k km where the European Union alone, not the "whole of Europe", you know that is half the size of the us and it sits at 208k km which means it has almost twice as many tracks as the us relative to its size.... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_transport_network_size
Your corporate overlords always find ways to shaft thousands of passengers by doing sneaky things though. Like who runs trainsets that don't fit in the company's own sidings? How can any other train not yield to a consist that physically does not fit in any siding? It's well known that the freight companies see Amtrak as an existential threat and try to stamp it out in any way they can. The evidence is right there on any Amtrak Departures board.
@@TohaBgood2 when Amtrak has a no fitter meet what happens is the freight train stops in the siding or on the main clear of the switch. Amtrak crosses the switch and the freight starts rolling as soon as we get lights. Amtrak slow rolls but doesn't stop. Delay is minimal. That is if the no fitter is allowed to leave the yard before Amtrak even clears. The other end of the spectrum is I am deadheading on Amtrak often enough, the only time they are delayed is when someone has mechanical problems. I have sat for hours in sidings waiting on Amtrak. It's an every day thing.
@@jeffjohnson2273 Freight waiting for passenger trains is normal. That's how freight works all over the world. And that should be the default. The train tracks were built from government subsidies and land grants. The freight railroads only exist because the government used them to move government loads all around the country and paid to maintain "key links". You say that this is infrequent anecdotally. Well, we can all look up the stats online. Any delay of a passenger train delays thousands of people. Any delay caused by illegal freight practices is technically speaking, a crime. Even a seconds delay of an Amtrak train by a freight train costs the country money and should cost the freight company money in fines. This is not currently enforced by the FRA. It should be.
@@TohaBgood2 seconds? I've got the GCOR and FRA regs in my work bag. It does not say anything like that. It really sounds like you're on the east coast where AmTrash is running their own rails with their own amateur hour dispatch. 90% of Amtrak delays here are caused by Amtrak. Last night they had a Norfolk Southern unit on their head end because they can't keep their own units running, they were two hours late because we had to pull a unit out of freight service and run it out to them. They got stuck in a snow bank last winter because they didn't wanna wait for snow removal equipment, we had to hook our freight units up to the back of them and pull them back down the hill. These are just a few stories. Government funded AmTrash is amateur hour. You'll be er change my mind.
@@jeffjohnson2273 And it is precisely this complete disregard toward the taxpayers that fund both Amtrak and your trash subsidized companies is the reason why you all need to be broken up and/or nationalized. You simply can't comprehend at who's pleasure you serve and whose tax dollars make your paycheck possible.
Now there is a new privately owned train called brightline and it's also developing it's own track plus their trains are also modernized, currently it's operating in Florida amd Las Vegas, set to open more tracks in other places in the USA.
To be fair a much bigger % of Europeans use public transport compared to Americans because it’s more viable, living in America you pretty much need your own transportation to do anything - if I where to take public transportation to get to work, the dmv, a doctors appointment etc.. it would take me a couple hours just to get there. I’ve driven farther everyday for work than the radius of most European countries and I guarantee you most of the materials I needed where transported via railroad at some point along the way.
@@TheLegoTrainStation around 50 minutes if traffic is good, when I worked in Moab I was commuting 7-8 hours per week ‘cause I would travel there and back to SLC to manage other projects.
@@yulfine1688 roughly, it all depends on what it is you do for work so imagine that the average American that transports to the same facility every day still take 1 hour just to get there. I work in construction as a finish carpenter for various job sites around my state, there has been times that it’s taken me 4 hours just to get to work….
Freight vehicles have a larger impact on the environment than commuters so this is actually reasonable and I say that as a passenger train loving Englishman.
The northeast corridor is a dedicated pasenger route. While freight trains still run on it. The passenger trains have priority. Bassicly everything outside the northeast corridor belongs to the freight companies.
I rode the Korean high speed rail. It doesn't have to compete with freight. Out of a 3 hour journey it only went high speed for about 15 minutes. The rest of the time it just lumbered along. And it stopped many times to load. I figured out that if we had taken the taxi we could have gotten to our destination faster.
they wont. in case your wondering silicon valley hates trains because they support elon musk and they need to stop yapping about robots being safer than human. Train safer than car.
Also…. Trains are a big waste of time in any long distance travel in the us. It would be as if people in Ireland were all taking the train to Moscow. It’s doable… just fly or drive.
DRIVE? are you insane its even slower than the train as you get stuck in traffic you do realize that we do have a few regions in this country that cities are close and there is a lot of travel between them? Think northeast, california, midwest, etc also have you heard of china
Um actually your wrong, the Acela does not use freight tracks it uses the northeast corridor, which is owned by Amtrak. The real problem is the freight company’s don’t care about passenger trains and they refuse to upgrade infrastructure.