Comment by morpheuskafka
6 years ago
I'm sure there are some sort of rules on mixed consists of freight and passenger, the freight railroads also wouldn't have access arrangements to use station facilities. If you're talking about buying a locomotive and running a completely private consist, that would work, but you would have to start your own private railroad company, get FRA certified crew, and satisfy the Class I host railroads that your company was able to follow their rulebooks and not be more trouble than you're worth to their traffic.
It's probably doable though, there are some very short Class 3s with only a few employees that use small portions of Class I tracks and yards.
Mixing freight and passenger is allowed although rarely done because the passenger service would be very poor. In modern cars the lack of an electrical hookup from the locomotive would also be problematic.
Amtrak used to carry US mail up until the late 70s and still ferries cars on some routes.
Financially impractical as all this already is, as the article points out, dealing with private railroad cars is such a tiny blip that it's hard to imagine anyone responsible for the logistics of a large-scale rail operation wanting to deal with it. It's pretty much only (sort-of) supported by Amtrak for legacy reasons.
As you say, there may be short sections where this sort of thing could work but that's probably not what people looking to do long cross-country trips are looking for.
> I'm sure there are some sort of rules on mixed consists of freight and passenger
It could work if you are willing to travel slowly. Freight trains don't travel very fast (25/mpg ish), while Amtrak tries to go in 50/mph ish range.
This causes them a lot of scheduling trouble.
But if you are willing to travel at the same speed as freight it would be a lot easier to accommodate.
Passenger trains tend to travel faster than freight, true. But 25 MPH? No. Not on major lines, anyway.
You can probably find statistics that give you a number that low (or even lower), but I think they include dwell time in yards, not just road time.
I sat in one that got stuck behind freight traffic (according to the announcement).
25 MPH is what I remember, with short bursts of faster speed.
It was much faster before we got stuck behind the freight.
PS. The statistics I found actually said current average is 20!!
No way dude, I live in semu-rural Pennsylvania and the freight train that passes 10+ times a day does 45-50 mph. I've driven alongside dozens of times.