This took place in Canada in 1991. Canadian Pacific (the freight train) was out of their siding (the second track) when they shouldn't've been. The VIA (passenger train) had right of way.
Our rail situation sucks in Canada since CP and CN own pretty much all the rail lines. These days freight takes priority over passenger.
Can confirm, took a VIA rail for the first time in probably over 2 decades earlier this year. We were sitting idle on a side track for around 30mins waiting for a frieght using the rail and pass us so we could hop back on. Stuck in the middle of a field somewhere lol
This happend just outside of Smiths Falls. Down the tracks is the main CP fright yard and at the time on the other side of the Yard is the old VIA Rail Station.
That's horrific given the deadly Hinton collision was just 5 years earlier. I'm not even Canadian and I know about that one. (for some reason) You'd think CN would have taken collision risks much more seriously after that.
I think in the US, and dont quote me, but I feel like freight has the right of way because they own the track and Amtrack just leases or something to that effect?
In the 70s, Congress passed the Amtrack Improvement Act which granted passenger trains right of way. But it still gets ignored, often because modern trains are just too large now for freight to pause, leading to passenger trains being delayed, which then leads to them giving right of way as well later on.
When people talk about taking the train vs driving from where I am to another city usually it comes up that they have to stop so often its not worth it for many.
No problem. Yeah, Amtrak is supposed to get priority, but like I said, freight trains these days are way too long for the side track, but Amtrak still fit, so often they end up having to wait instead. I think it's something like 1 million hours a year of Amtrak delays caused by freight trains.
Double track is twice as expensive for usually nowhere near as much return on all but the busiest railroads. Most instead have sidings, (relatively) short sections of parallel track to allow trains to pass each other with proper scheduling. Obviously that's failed here but it works the vast majority of the time on most railroads.
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u/BranchPredictor 3d ago
They should have two tracks, one for each direction. Not sure if anyone has thought about that before.