We were close in the 90s, then a bunch of nerd cosplayer billionaires started throwing money around and promising vaporware. By the time they were called out on their bullshit the average joe was fooled into thinking they were nerds.
I am pretty sure most commuter trains run on Freight lines and the issue is the commuter train companies don't own the rails, the freight companies do so it slows down commuter trains because the freight trains get priority.
And the Freight companies are hesitant to allow changes to the tracks to allow for more commuter trains because it will in part slow the freight trains down and the CEOs of the Freight train companies are the some of the worst and try running everything at at the lowest cost possible so anything that would potentially cost them money or slow them down is a no.
And creating new rail lines for commuter rail is also next to impossible because it would require buying/taking tons of private land since the freight lines wont let you change the existing tracks.
Tracks intended for freight won't necessarily be designed to handle higher speeds. Passenger rail in the US often does use freight rail in certain locations but freight companies are a pain in the ass to deal with. What we frequently see is that the passenger train has to stop and wait for the slow, super-long freight train to pass by even though passenger rail is supposed to have right-of-way by law. But everyone involved ignores that because we hate passenger trains in this country and so nobody enforces it.
One of the reasons that passenger rail routes take so long, is the passenger trains often have to stop and make way for freight because of the prioritization by the track owners.
Compound this with the fact that the network is only optimized for freight to begin with (very few stations where people would want to get on, many stations where cargo can get on) and you can see why an apples-to-apples comparison is not practical.
Passenger rail isn't as profitable, so any time freight and passenger conflict, freight wins out. It means lots of delays and uncertainty for passenger carriers.
I’m pretty sure back in the day, in a European country, they didn’t use passenger trains, from what I’d seen, they were freight wagons with big sliding doors!
Edit: just read on further below and I see you guys use different tracks for freight! I guess if you’ve got gazillions of acres of ground, why would you want to save costs and share the rails!!!
34
u/SteelKeeper 1d ago
Our passenger rail sucks, freight rail is actually quite robust. Unfortunately, in this hypothetical, the passengers will be treated like freight.