I have a few questions regarding US passenger travel and since a large majority of folks here are from that country, I figured why not ask in this forum only. This could be a long thread, so please bear with me. a] Amtrak is a privately operated passenger rail service right? Do any alternatives exist to it or have existed in the past; conversely were nationalized train transport ever a thing in the US? [I am aware of what happened post WW 2 where private companies took over train tracks and basically dismantled them and pulling down US from the world leader in railways once but have little context otherwise]. b] How many classes of travel do exist in passenger rail road? I am assuming reserved air conditioning is the norm but do sub categorization exist as well [For eg, Indian Railways has as much as 5 tiers of classification ranging from luxurious coupes of First AC to unreserved General, the latter of which would be alien in developed nations] c] What is usually the maximum permissible speed of passenger trains[and freight trains] there? I know that car culture prevails and sometimes flight tickets are cheaper between two cities making train journeys more of a luxury. d] Do unmanned rail crossing still exist in the US? It might be a stupid question to ask but I am just intrigued.
Amtrak is government. Our railroads were nationalized by Woodrow Wilson during the first world war. Exports to Europe were way, way up, and U-boats were creating a shortage of ships. So goods piling up in Atlantic ports soon filled every warehouse, and freight cars simply couldn't be unloaded. There was a freight car shortage because they were essentially being used as warehouses. The government used that as an excuse for a power grab, naturally. People decided that excuse was valid, humanity being foolish. As usual, government not only failed to fix that, but screwed everything else up too. So, stockholders got their property back after Woodrow Wilson was finally kicked out of office. I find the perception that we "lost leadership" after the other world war because we abandoned routes interesting. We settled our continent by building a host of railroads which could barely sustain themselves even when new. Much of that had to go. It was dead wood. Europeans tend to look at us and say, here's a first world country, just like western European countries, just the same. So they judge us on their standard, which is natural. But I, for one, am in a wild west state, squarely in the middle of the Breadbasket of the World, and compared to Oklahoma, Italy is less than twice as big--and has fifteen times the population. When you live in a town of five hundred, and the nearest settlement of any kind is a town of 1500 which is 75 km away, a motor coach is much more efficient than an entire train. Amtrak is government. You keep hearing about privately owned rails associated with it because the federal government only took over rails in the most densely populated portion of the country. Poor states subsidize all this government rail in all our richest states, because democracy is two wolves and a sheep discussing dinner. But that's just a busy, highly populated sliver that only serves eight of our states, including the four tiniest in terms of area. Most passenger trains here are unwelcome trespassers on privately owned rails whose real customers are shippers, not travelers. Essentially we have two classes of rail travel, and always have had -- coach and Pullman. The nice thing about private enterprise, on which our system was built, is you don't have fascist bureaucrats to define these things for you and mete out luxuries according to the committee diktat. Instead you got, back in the day, people choosing the Frisco over the Rock Island because their coaches are nicer and their rails smoother. We lost that in 1971, not because it didn't work, but because the government forced railroads to keep running unprofitable services until they surrendered to the bigger power grab. Federal law prohibits trains without a very old technology called ATS, Automatic Train Stop, from exceeding 79 mph (just over 125 km/h). Few trains go that fast here these days; most mainline freight moves a steady 60 or so (100 km/h). The California project was a horrible boondoggle. It tried to connect every population center in the state. So, it was never going to be a faster service. The trains were intended to be fast, but would have squandered that by turning east here, then cutting back due west, and generally wandering all over creation along the way. California taxpayers allowed the government to squander several fortunes on it, but only got a few kilometers built in the middle of nowhere, and demanded that the foolishness end. Again, each km costs more because our federal government imposes foolish demands even on our states, but each km serves fewer people because we have more wilderness to cross than any western European country. At least 99.9999% of U.S. grade crossings are unmanned. We have plenty of mechanical signals, many with gates, but no flagmen. But no, signals certainly aren't present at every spot where some farm road crosses some lightly used branch line. Quite the opposite, at least out my way. Stop, look and listen for the whistle. And no, this isn't textbook history. Some will consider it revisionist. But anyone who wants to refute it had better take a moment to bone up before wading in, because the facts support the conclusions you see here.
a] Amtrak is government owned but with the exception of what is called the Northeast Corridor, it runs on private freight railroad track. There were many private companies running passenger trains, but they wanted out of the inter-city market and only wanted to run freight. When Amtrak took over passenger service, a few railroads did not "join" it and continued to run passengers for a few years. There are still a number of private but mostly local government run commuter lines in and around large cities. b] There are basically two classes. On over night trains sleeping accommodations and meals are provided for first class passengers. I am not sure but some trains may have daytime first class parlor seats. Regular class have comfortable seats but pay for any food they want. Air conditioning is for everyone, except when it occasionally breaks. c] 75 mph is normal max most places. The Northeast Corridor has limited it to a maximum of 150 miles per hour on segments of track in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Parts of track in Arizona and California is 95. d] There a very few if any manned crossings remaining. There are automated crossings in heavy traffic areas and passive crossing with only signs.
That excellent synopsis hews more toward the "conventional wisdom". In the few areas where it differs from mine, perhaps each reader will decide he or she found the truth somewhere in between. Just to give you an idea of the difference between here and there, my city of about 400,000 is 40 km across. Include the suburbs and you have more than double the potential passengers, but are now covering an area well over 100 km across. That elbow room is really, really nice, but comes at a price. The mass transit system is a joke. You can walk well over two kilometers to reach a bus stop, and wait nearly an hour for the next one, even within the central city. And that's during peak service; if you get service that good at 10:00 p.m, you're very, very lucky. Partly this is a result of plentiful coal and oil energy, and partly a result of our youth. Steam locomotives and electric trams were proven technology when my city was founded, so crowding in on top of ourselves was unnecessary. But it was also a terrible idea. We are at the same latitude as Sicily, and have absolutely no sea breezes. Before the invention of air conditioning, we had to not only have windows during our 40°C and higher August weather, but those windows had to be far enough from the house next door that the wind could get at them. Otherwise we'd die of heat stroke in our own kitchens. And not only does most of our state lie south of us, but so does the entire state of Texas, along with the rest of about 1/3 of the mainland U.S. Miami, Florida and Corpus Christi, Texas are both farther south than Cairo.
As for government, I'll just provide one observation here in a separate post so it'll be easy to delete. In 1938 you could travel between New York City and Chicago behind steam locomotives owned and operated by private companies in sixteen hours. Today, on government trains following the same route, it takes four hours -- 25% -- longer.
I had heard of these Pullman coaches. They offer upgraded experience over the standard ones, right? So the trains are capable of going higher but the law prohibits them from making use of the maximum capacity? Tell me about it, I basically bake myself into an oven each summer since temperatures touch 45C every time in North India and I don't have air conditioning. That's why I like winters here, they are more moderate here compared to say US [let alone, Russian] and one isn't sweating on an industrial scale.
Back in the day (1866), Pullman sleepers had very conversational seating for four that a porter magically converted to bunk beds at night. Soon private rooms became available in four sizes. These, too, had couches that became beds, and berths hidden in the walls above the windows which folded down. I guess that equates to the type of multi-class accomodations you're used to, though all of these are better than coach seats. With sections, people paid less for an upper berth than a lower one. Beyond that were the roomette for one (or two if they really like each other), double bedrooms for three, compartments for four and drawing rooms for up to five. Yes, regulations are in place to limit speed. The freight haulers, however, have turned their back on speed, and are concentrating on keeping a steady pace with excellent traffic flow. Freight may never reach 120 km/h, but it also rarely stops. The fast freights seldom slow down. Passenger service is subject to both law and the regulations of the track owner in most of the nation. These things do limit speed, yes. On their own track Amtrak does go faster, though they don't seem to be able to run 200 km/h safely and apparently gave up on trying. We don't hit 45 often here, though spots in the Mojave do every summer. It's not fun, especially if the air is humid, not desert-dry.
Speaking of upper berths, the author Harper Lee was very petite. She tells a story in her first novel about sleeping in an upper berth without locking it open. It folded up closed on her, hiding and trapping her out of the way above the windows. The porter of her car noticed she didn't come out in the morning. He checked on her, and set her free.
I probably told this one before in some thread, but here it is again. During WWII, my mom was an Army nurse. She had been a civilian nurse prior to the war but after joining the Army and going through basic training, she had the rank of Second Lieutenant. When traveling by train, officers were typically given the upper Pullman births while two enlisted personnel had to share the wider lower births. She and two other nurses were traveling to their new post at Fort Sill, Oklahoma from Chicago on the Santa Fe. They had to change trains in Oklahoma City to head to Lawton where the army post was. One nurse turned in early and promised to wake my mom and the other gal up before they got to OK City so they could get ready to change trains. The two "Night Owls" headed for the lounge to get a drink. Two soldiers conned them into a card game with the intent of winning the upper births so that they did not have to sleep under the same blanket in a lower one. After the lounge car shut down and the attendant kicked them all out, they finished the game sitting on the floor in front of some lighted vending machines in another car. Of course the nurses lost and went to bed in their new double birth together while the two soldiers climbed into their newly won private uppers. Hours later, the first nurse got up and pulled back the curtains to the upper births where her companions were supposed to be. She started screaming at the two poor soldiers demanding to know what they did with the other two nurses. Everyone in the car was now awake and poking their heads out from behind their curtains to see what was going on. The Pullman Porter and an MP (Military Police) soon arrived and eventually sorted things out.
Brightline is a private company that runs a relatively high speed passenger service between Miami FL and Orlando FL (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightline). Parts of their route operate as fast as 125 MPH (about 200 kmh). The higher speed parts of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor service are between Washington DC and Boston. Its highest speeds (150mph) are in short sections of Rhode Island. Other parts of the Northeast Corridor have a max speed of 135mph, 125mph, 110mph, and 90mph. The leg that branches out to the west from Philadelphia to Harrisburg PA is also electrified, and is often described as being part of the Northeast Corridor. I forget whether it maxes out at 110mph or at 90mph. There are some other Amtrak routes that go as fast as 110mph: the route between Chicago and Detroit, and the route between Chicago and St Louis.
The accident in 2015 in northern Philadelphia took place in a zone where the maximum permitted train speed was only 50 mph, so it did not have anything to do with portions of the Amtrak Northeast Corridor that allow what are considered higher speeds in the US. Further details can be found here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Philadelphia_train_derailment).