US: *Confusing privatized rail system* UK: "Aite imma go spaghetti." *Completely incomprehensible system*

Americans: "nationalize the rail networks, what are you talking about? That's socialism" Americans with highways and stroads: "Add one more line and take my money, yes yes"

Don't forget the USRA: "The United States Railroad Administration (USRA) was the name of the nationalized railroad system of the United States between December 28, 1917, and March 1st, 1920.[1] It was possibly the largest American experiment with nationalization, and was undertaken against a background of war emergency."

My dad was Penn central and went conrail. He was rail gang. He was proud of the work him and his rail gang did. They fixed thousands of miles of track that fell apart.

I never understood this double-standard for the railroads!... Subsidized airlines, subsidized roads (maybe even boats 🤔!?), but only trains has to make a profit?! 🤔🤨 Greetings from Romania! 🙂

As a right wing guy I must say I pretty much have no argument against this and am very much in favor, if we're going to pour billions into road infrastructure and massively subsidize the airline industry then I see absolutely no reason we can't also throw at least a fraction of what we put into roads into railroads especially for passenger service and electrification

I spent over a decade (14 years) working for Union Pacific Railroad in the maintenance of way (MOW) department. working conditions were so bad, pay was so little & unions were so weak. I went to night school, got a degree in Hydrology & now I work for the water department.

Hmmm, yeah, probably the same as in germany. A LOT of people wish to go back in time when the whole rail sector was owned by the government. At least in the former western part of germany, the service was far better than nowadays. The DB (Deutsche Bundesbahn) was privatized in 1994, it went downhill immediately. Nowadays, the trains are often delayed or don't even arrive at all. The service in the trains for longer distances also isn't what it used to be. And everything because of some managers who just COULDN'T get enough of their money.

I have a feeling the algorithm is about to boost you up

JR actually is a group of private companies, the Japanese rail network was nationally run as JNR, however as of 1987, it consists of 7 for profit companies.

When the railroads do get nationalize my only selfish hope is that they paint heritage units for certain zones

Australia (after the state owned railways died) tried to nationalise the system twice, and both times ended up selling and privatising the companies ending up destroying the entire systems of one state and giving a single company a monopoly over rail freight so strong it tried to blackmail the Government.

Senators: _tries to make nationalized freight railroad_ U.S. Government: *No, i don't think i will*

Japan Railways (JR) is actually a private company. Japan's railways were also privatized during the neoliberal push in 1987. It was broken into 6 regional rail companies and 4 out of the 6 are in the black.

Help, the "on the sixth day" bit has me bent over wheezing...oh my god I can't stop laughdiagndsa

First and foremost, single track railways should be taxed at higher rates than bi-track. In theory a more incentive based tax policy and forgivable loans, as opposed to grants, could be used to beat private companies into making rail infrastructure better.

The idea that the infrastructure, right of way, track etc be publicly or semi-publically (a chartered special purpose public interest corporation, all profits go to maintaining, improving, and sometimes extending infrastructure) owned while the operation of freight and passenger services is private could possibly combine the best aspects of private and public ownership.

This is a very good introduction to the topic. I'd like to add that a nationalised rail system in the US has a bit of an advantage over Europe as the US is not in the single market and a publicly-owned high speed rail network in the US would be allowed to sell tickets at a loss, which is not allowed under EU regulations (this is why low-cost airlines such as Ryanair and Easyjet have proliferated there). We also have the ability to run the railways as one government agency as opposed to a state-owned corporation, which is not allowed in the EU. We can not only have as good public rail investment as mainland Europe, we might even be able to do better than them with sufficient political will.

A favorite quote of mine about why I love infrastructure: "If it's infrastructure/continuous, it can be electrified. If it's logistical/discrete, it probably can't." I want fast, low cost and carbon neutral solutions to transport, dammit! Discrete packet options like planes, cars and trucks make sense for companies, because you can pay for them 1 at a time (ignoring the fact that 2/3 of these needs roads built by... yea), whereas a rail line or canal needs to be finished before you can start using it. But a rail line is static, so you can electrify is and use electric trains, and you can transport more people/cargo for cheaper per unit! But it's a 10 year project, and that falls outside the people who would greenlight its' term of office, so fuck the next guy taking credit for their work, short term action to keep me in power! I hate short term thinking, it's why we can't have nice things

Easier said than done. In America that's anathema because it'll be branded as socialism. While almost limitless government support for the industrial-military complex isn't.

Remember the lobbyists, cooperate interests and our corrupt gov’t who’d most likely put a stop to any of this good stuff

Thanks for watching and welcome to the cage match know as the comments. I started a discord! If you'd like to join its in the video description! Also yes I know that JR isn't "truely" nationalized, it works similar to modern Amtrak.

The problem isn't that railroads aren't nationalized, the problem is that highways ARE. The government has accidentally tricked us into subsidizing the worst form of travel and then we wonder why the better options suck so much. I would much rather take a train to New York, but I can save a half hour, not get stuck behind freight trains, better time my arrival, etc. etc. so long as I take one of the multiple highway routes that will get me straight there. In order to actually cover the road I'm using, I should be paying tolls that are two to three times the price of the inexpensive train ticket, but I won't because the capital cost and maintenance of that road are buried in state and federal budgets. In fact, I'll SAVE money driving my car if I'm not overly concerned with factoring in wear and tear on my vehicle, which I'm not because I need that anyway so I generally just consider a fact of life in Philly unless I want to get raped on the train, watch a guy die from an overdose, or take a 15-minute drive in one hour

2022 strike brought me back here lol Just bring back conrail and nationalize the rail road and treat the rail roaders better, my dad was happier on Conrail than he was on CSX

When you said the the government would own the tracks and infrastructure, I immediately think of the UK rail system, where the government (Network Rail) does indeed own the tracks and infrastructure. But their franchising model tho... 😬

My grandfather worked for conrail and all I ever heard was how awfully they treated him. He actually ended up dying from multiple cancers caused by the work he did for them. Im glad to learn about this but I will say that I would never work for a rail company given the history of high turnover rates from them I see through my current Jin with a uniform company

If the class 1 railways don't get off thier anti union high horse, nationalization is coming

2:56 Hold the music! The federal government played a big role in why the old railroad companies went bankrupt in the first place by dictating what they could charge and forcing them to keep money-losing routes.

The first railway in continental Europe, the Belgian main line (constr. 1835-1840), was state owned and planned from the start. Private regional and freight railways were allowed, but in many cases the service of private passenger rail was so lacking and expensive that members of parliament begged the state to nationalise the private railway in their region (e.g. in West Flanders). Between 1870-1882 almost all railways were nationalised. This arrangement, apart from a name change and some restructuring, remains to this day. While the physical state of many of our trains and stations is...Belgian..., the service is decent, the network dense and fares are cheaper than in neighbouring countries. The workshops of the Belgian state railways also produced some important technological innovations, such as Walschaerts valve gear and the Belpaire firebox.

One of your biggest arguments is that companies put in the bare minimum in terms of maintenance. That's not true at all. The big four give the public access to their yearly budgets if you want to look it up; BNSF alone plans to spend about 3 billion this year for maintenance and expansion of their infrastructure. Furthermore, the railroads are already highly regulated, and the FRA has a heavy presence throughout the industry, even up here in Montana. Because of this, I fail to see how nationalization will make any difference. Also, there are different track classes, with higher classes requiring more maintenance and precision. Amtrak routes are better maintained as a result. They're talking about reestablishing a passenger route through southern Montana, and there's talk about what will need to be done to the track if that comes to fruitation.

For anyone thats looking: the trippie music mentioned is called "cannibals" from the album mouth dreams

DB sadly has been privatized, the stereotype that german trains always run on time has been gone since then. :/

Public infrastructure with private services has worked excellently for our roads. It's about time we do it on our railroads. High speed rail would be excellent, but even a proper low-speed passenger network would be a complete game-changer for America.

I know this is a very difficult topic for most Northamericans. I just want to say the following: i am a locomotive driver (i think you call it engineer) in Switzerland. Our railroad is partially (more then 50%) nationalized and we, the taxpayers pay a LOT for the railroad, and we are happy to do so. Our railnetwork is fast,efficient, well maintained and works, well just like a swiss watch. It has NOTHING to do with communism at all! I live in a free country with democracy and a capitalism. Helping the railroad moving traffic and bring people to the trains instead of traffic jams and overloaded cities with poor air-quality is NOT communism... we never ever had communism in Switzerland... thanks for the video cheers

"All of the best countries when it comes to inner-city regional rail networks are all nationalized..." Hi, let me introduce myself. I'm a Canadian. We have VIA Rail, which is just as shitty as Amtrak only "run" by our government!

Private rail companies can sit and block multiple major intersections for hours, but the rest of us get fined and ticketted for causing minor inconveniences for the road system

Watching this from Russia, it feels weird. Even on paper, private-owned railroads will turn operating passenger service into hell because it's the freight trains that make profits on rail. Good passenger service is almost always operating at a loss, but that loss is subsidized by the government. But since it doesn't make as much money to railway owners compared to freight trains, passenger service still gets the short stick. Then comes the track improvement. If it doesn't make a buck, then the owners won't do it. Simple as that. Private-owned railroads is a bad idea, and it's a bad idea even on paper. Principles, sure, but USSR stuck with it's principles to the very end, and how does that country do today, I wonder?

Just to clear up on thing, JR started privatisation in 1987. Of the 7 companies in the group, only 3 (Hokkaido, Shikoku, and Freight) are still controlled by the government. JR Kyushu was also only recently privatised in 2016. From what I can tell, the reason the other three weren't also privatised is because they run at a loss. Kinda makes it sound like privatisation is just a cash-grab for corporations....

A correction to your video, Japan’s JR is not nationalized at all. It was privatized decades ago into regional companies. The smaller less urban JR Hokkaido and JR Shikoku are privatized but loss making and their stock is mostly owned by the government, but JR east (Tokyo and most eastern Japan), JR central (Nagoya area and makes most of its money from the cash printing machine that is the Osaka Tokyo Shinkansen line) and JR west (Osaka, Kyoto etc.. and the rest of western Honshu island) and lastly Jr Kyushu (all of Kyushu island) are all privatized and on the Tokyo stock exchange, they all make a significant profit. The reasons why Japan’s private railways work are complicated but it proves that under certain conditions, private railways can strive. (Not subsidizing parking and highways is a big part of the reason why Japanese private railways can remain competitive )

"And on the sixth, the Feds said, let there be Conrail and it was good". 🤣

You try to nationalize the major railways in the US, and all you will get is a huge, drawn-out, mind-numbingly expensive legal fight.

You've lost your mind...government couldn't run a lemonade stand

Isn't the whole point of a service like passenger rail not to make a profit directly but to assist the economy as a whole? Like public transit generally doesn't make a profit, but if it shut down, millions of people would no longer be able to get to work, meaning the businesses that employed them wouldn't be able to fiction.

Canada needs this too, re-nationalization of CN and the nationalisation of CP would end the stupid fights over ROWs, especially in urban areas where many cities want more commuter train service and want to move trains to another line but the companies refuse to work with each other.

"But the federal government came to help." If that isn't enough to scare you I don't know what will.

In case you wanna pronounce the "Ö" from ÖBB, it's a lot like the sound you make in words like "hurt" or "dirt".

Including the JR, there’s no national railway company in Japan.

Well a few points..... nationalized rail networks with exceptions have done a terrible job with handling freight traffic. France mentioned in the video has about an 8% share. In alot of countries in Europe carload freight is practically gone, the European nationalized carriers PSRd their freight before it was cool. In the Eastern Block and Soviet Union freight had such a high modal share because often long distance trucking was outright banned. In the GDR and Romania for example trucks were not allowed to drive more than 200 km. In western Europe there were also some protective legislation to favor rail transport, but this was largely eliminated due to EU driven neoliberal legislation in the early 1990s. Look up the MORA-C program in Germany if you want to learn about the German version of PSR, admittedly this was after the German railways were fake privatized (another long topic...). In the European context the only country that is doing a good job with rail freight is Switzerland which places very strict regulation on truck traffic and heavily subsidizes rail freight. My experience outside the US and Europe is limited but in India the railroads gave up single wagon traffic in the 1990s, from then on only handling unit trains. Alot of negative things can be said about the current US rail landscape but the long PSR land barges makes rail cheap enough to compete with trucks and gives rail in the US a higher modal share than most other places in the world. Personally I think there is alot of opportunity to improve passenger rail within the current model, just there is zero political will to do so. The freight railroads are generally willing to cooperate if the government will actually pay for the necessary infrastructure upgrades for passenger rail. Funding for capacity upgrades and a neutral dispatching solution like done on Brightline would be a good first step in the right direction for improving passenger service.

This video is more timely than ever in 2023.

i feel you on the topic on nationalization. Here in germany the politicians came to the 'brilliant' conclusion that we should half-privatize the DB becuase "private corporations always are sooo good at saving money and the DB drains a lot of cash" .. you can imagine what happened in the following years (last 10-15 years basically ?) We now have rotting infrastructure all over the country, no employees to make travelling reasonable and train stations good, and large streches of single track railroads that cause major fuckups in scheduling etc ... who would have thought

Love the mention of the Lackawanna cutoff! should have never ripped up the rails.

YES, i have been saying this PRECISE same thing for years now. nationalize the mainlines, then give everyone trackage rights everywhere so that shippers can have a true choice instead of being locked in based on which of the Big Four runs by their area.

NOOOO but MY FREEDOM or something

Nationalize the rails then lease them back to the freighters and use the profits to run passenger trains. Take them by eminant domain.

I'm old enough to remember Conrail and how it went bankrupt. Amtrak continues to operate at a loss. In your plan to nationalize railroads, what would you do differently?

The US Railway freight network is the envy of Europe. Passenger lines are the flashy part of railroads but the bulk of their use comes from freight trains and in Europe the axle loads for freight are nowhere near those of the US which means longer less economic trains, this is also why road freight is so prominent in Europe. The average axle load in Europe is 22,5 tons while in the US it's 35 tons which means you can take heavier loads. The load profile is also much narrower prohibiting larger cargos or double stacking containers. Sweden is an outlier in Europe as the standard axle load is 25 tons and the prominent iron ore railway in the north has 32,5 tons and lot's of comparisons show up in reports about infrastructure where Sweden the EU and USA are compared and axle load is a major impediment to rail freight in Europe. Rail freight in europe in the year 2000 was about 15% while in the US it was 49% having barely declined in the last 30 years while in Europe it had gone off a cliff.

I like how what killed passenger rail was. . . Nationalization of roads xd Plus amtrak cough, cough cut most of us passenger routes, stations, jobs and so on ;)

I stumbled on your wordpress script while trying to research how much nationalizing the US rail system would expand passenger rail access for communities across America. I'm in the KCMO area, and our infrastructure is abhorrent, but there are all these lightly used and unused rail lines throughout the suburbs that could really help with our traffic issues. Doesn't seem to be a lot of graphs on the topic that I can find so far, might be a fun line of research!

US rail has been a capitalist nightmare ever since the days of JP Morgan and the robber barons abusing immigrant laborers to lay the tracks in freezing cold and extreme heat for low pay (and going through Native lands; many rail laborers were killed by Native Americans defending their land), and selling cheap stock shares to lawmakers to get more subsidies than necessary to complete the work; the extra tens of millions were pocketed by the CEOs.

Thank you, Mr. Fisher, for alluding to the Lackawanna Cutoff in your video. Once considered an engineering marvel, the line dashed 28 miles between Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The Cutoff crossed the Delaware River on a beautiful concrete viaduct, then carved deeply into rock cuts and soared on earthen fills, eschewing automobile crossings. I was a newspaper reporter in 1983 when local government officials tried to dissuade Conrail from abandoning the track between Slateford Junction, Pa., and Port Morris Junction, N.J. After 40 years since writing my first story about this, the Cutoff is not whole again. Blame was placed everywhere. Fire damage to the Poughkeepsie Bridge that blocked an essential junction. Conrail’s refusal to consider reasonable alternatives. Amtrak’s wishy-washy attitude toward reviving a route that once carried 70 mph passenger trains. Part of the right-of-way being sold to a developer, and then reclaimed by eminent domain. And more. Some were reasons; other were excuses. The only bright spot for the Cutoff’s future is NJ Transit’s plans to revive 7 miles of the line between Port Morris and Andover by 2026 for weekday commuter service. I understand a construction contract has been let. Not to change the subject, but the Pennsylvania Northeast Regional Railroad Authority has revived 66 miles of track between Carbondale, Pa., and Slateford Junction. The Delaware-Lackawanna Railroad operates most of the line at an increased volume of freight traffic. Steamtown USA, a project of the National Park Service, operates tourist excursions primarily from Scranton to points to the south. But unfortunately the remaining 21 miles of the Lackawanna Cutoff between Slateford Junction and Andover continues to languish. Local, state and congressional leaders have pledged to restore the entire route. Studies have been done. But no one truly knows how much rebuilding the line for freight and passenger service will cost. Or when the first train would run. It's sad.

For my 2-cents let me plainly say that WE (the USA) are in terrible shape with respect to regional rail service. I live innSE Ohio and have ZERO passenger service, actually for me to connect with any type of rail service I am required to travel 4 hours to Pittsburgh, 3 hours to Cleveland or approximately the same time to Cincinnati. This needs to be fixed by whatever the means be. I understand economics and P/L but a high % of AMERICANS living in the rural areas no longer have any contact with rail services.

The reason why those countries have nationalized railroads is because they evolved from being primarily passenger carriers. In The United States the railroads evolved from primarily being fright carriers as that was where the bulk of the earnings came from. During the first half of the last century United States railroads operated their first class passenger named trains to promote all the services they could provide to fright customers.

The United States has the most efficient and productive railroads in the world. Not coincidentally, the United States also has the most private railroads in the world. Other than Canada, almost every other country that has railroads has nationalized them.Private railroads operate with very different goals from those that are owned by the government. Private railroads seek to maximize profits, and to do so they must be as efficient and productive as possible. Government-owned railroads seek to maximize political popularity, and to do so they must favor actions that are highly visible and often are highly inefficient and unproductive because economic costs translate into political benefits.

(canadian here) I disagree with this video. Here, If I understand correctly, what you're saying is we should nationalize rail primarily to see benefits to passenger service. The thing is, the U.S. has pretty much the world's best freight rail system. The systems you talked about in Europe are obviously excellent for passenger operations, but Europe has pretty awful freight rail compared to the U.S. Moving rail by freight is really, really great from an ecological sustainability perspective (even moreso with future hydrogen/battery trains), and doing so at a profit is financially/economically sustainable. However, I do agree with the passenger rail side of things. First, we have to be able to invest in rail infrastructure without expectation of an operating profit (but with the expectation of a benefit to the economy). The northeast corridor (govt-owned passenger rail infrastructure) model should extend cross-country to the west coast and the Gulf, through chicago. Then amtrak, regional operators, and other emerging operators (even private entities) can use this dedicated rail mainline without impeding, or most importantly being impeded by, freight rail.

Japanese National Railways was privatized in the 1987 forming the current JR Group and while it has worked for Japan, I don't think privatization would work for other countries. As we have seen how well the US handles it's private rail network.. Also if you look at JR group, most of their profit is not transportation related..

I suggest you look at the cost to move cargo in Europe vs the USA. In the USA, we have 4-axle cars, which can carry 286,000 pounds per car, or about 130 Tonnes. Europe is about 44 Tonnes per car. Second, Europe has a height restriction and cannot carry double stack. Third, trains in Europe are limited to 750M, and the USA averages 2000M per train, and can be as high as 6000M. You can see that China is following the US model for their freight services on the Great Silk Road project, using large, fast freight trains to move between Europe and Asia.

Nationalizing rain in the US would be sacrificing one of the best run freight networks in the world, in order to try to improve passenger rail that would still be a massive money sink, that might still go unused.

I think you are partially correct. I do not think the movement of freight should be nationalized, but the tracks should get interstate treatment, and call it interstatelization

It shouldn't be a question of "railway nationalisation," it should be a question of _infrastructure nationalisation._ A good model for North America is Britain's *_Network Rail._* Nationalise the infrastructure and lease access to any company that wants to run a railway (for freight or passenger services). Limit the length of trains to 1'000 m (0.62 miles) in length (±40× 25 m cars) so that freight can move faster (as they do in Europe) - this would reduce level crossing infractions dramatically: a 1 km train moving at 60 km/h (~37 mph), would pass through a level crossing in 60 seconds; a 1 km train moving at 120 km/h (~75 mph) would pass through a level crossing in 30 seconds; a passenger train moving at 180 km/h (111 mph) would pass through a level crossing in 20 seconds. These delays are a far cry from the almost 6 minutes a 150+ car train typically takes to pass through a level crossing at 25 mph. (Of course, removing level crossings entirely would be the preferred solution.) With a nationalised network, all operators (freight or passenger) would pay the same fee per tonne hauled over the track, but passenger service would be given priority over freight (being faster and lighter). In congested corridors, quadruple track could be provided (2 fast (high speed); 2 slow). In North America, the early railways were granted the right-of-way lands by the federal government on condition they maintained those right-of-ways and provided rail services to the communities they served. Over the past 100 years, the railway companies have abrogated their commitments by abandoning right-of-ways and track because they weren't economically viable to maintain (and they saw no financial benefit from leasing access to their track - while carrying the maintenance costs - to 'short-line' freight or commuter rail operators). In essence, public lands _granted_ to private corporations were sold for private profit and not a dime of that profit was transferred back to the original public landowners.

I had no idea who owns the rail network in the US. This explains a lot.

Full electrification AND nationalization of the railways? Stop - I can only get so hard.

Finally, I thought I was the only one who thought this way; bring back Conrail Quality

This aged like a fine wine.

No boomer Reganites were harmed during the making of this video. (although their brains might explode if they ever watched it.)

The fact you use Japan as an example of nationalized rail shows how little you know.

Why did you mention JR though ? JR is the complete antithesis to this video : a privatization effort gone (Somewhat) right. They are 100% for profit and make much of their money through a combination of fares and real estate investment. I say somewhat because it worked wonders for central Japan but not so much for isolated places, mostly Hokkaido and Shikoku, where perhaps the railways really should have remained public. None of this invalidates the video, I just found it silly to include JR there. It's like putting a McD logo on a video about fighters against capitalism or something.

A huge missed opportunity was making the Interstate Highway Act the Interstate Highway and Railway Act back in 1956

As of today, the US has the worlds most efficient freight train network. This keeps thousands of semis off the road, and keeps cargo out of airplanes. When we already have such an efficient freight transportation, could it be argued that making fundamental changes to this system could put that system in jeopardy? Why doesn't the US government invest in dedicated passenger rail lines?

I would ordinarily say give em a chance to improve. but they've had their chance, For a hundred years.

DB is a pain. For example i was on a trip to a neighboring tiwn on the weekend. Its hakf an hour or about 8 stops away. First train had a malfunction and got canceled. 2nd train came 20 minutes late but then also got canceled without an announcement. Third train had "do not enter" on its display but the staff told me "nah mate ofc u can enter". The third train departed 15 minutes late after standing at the station for about 20 mins. In total i arrived only 1.5 hours late. Good job DB. Thos is how 60% of my trips go

On the flip side US freight railways are the most efficient on the planet. Nationalisation would be a massive mistake for freight and would introduce huge inefficiencies.

US has some of the best freight train network in the world. Passenger trains don't work for the US except for a few select routes because of massive distances and low passenger density. Amtrak is already subsidized by the government to run non-profitable routes. Flights are too fast and too cheap. Seattle to San Francisco flights can be as cheap as $50 and takes < 2 hours. Why would I ever take the train?

Other railroads: Why are you so afraid of Nationalization? Union Pacific: Because I’m the only major US railroad that’s been with us since the 1800s and I don’t want to die

american rail will be made great again.

The reason privately owned railroads get rid of these small branch lines is because they don't make enough money to continue operating. So what is the solution, have the government subsidize the continued operation and then pass the costs on to taxpayers, even though few people use the line and the maintenance costs alone are more than the revenue it produces?

1865: Union Pacific Railroad went bankrupt 3 times, always brought back to life thanks to taxpayers money. Meanwhile, at the same time, The Great Northern Railway was built thanks only to private investments. The problem is always in how the governments plans to build stuff, the Union Pacific Railroad was funded "for each mile of road it built", this creates a problem, the people in charge of the project are not incentivized to build in a straight line, the more inefficient and long, the more money coming from gov into the company's wallet. One railroad endured for 100 years, the other one was discontinued after 10 ( I'll let you guess which is which). Same thing here in italy, railroads were a complete disaster when they were nationalized, now it's a private monopoly so it's still inefficient, however at least modernization of tracks and cabins is coming. Your hate for the free market is unjustified since the main cause of reticence in building railways is the state, with its taxes on railway companies or lack of subsidies. P.S. sorry for my bad english I'm not from america.

i've been seeing the distance argument a lot and honestly i cannot comprehend how someone thinks this isn't a good idea but the interstates or transcontinental railroad were. interstates pass through mostly nothing, even on the east coast (trust me, i've driven them, exits on the njpike seem like they lead nowhere half the time and that's in one of the densest states of the nation), so this argument just doesn't work. nationalized rail means services are forced to run, meaning new growth opportunities. but it doesn't benefit EVERYONE directly, so god forbid, right?

Since when (with few exceptions) does our government do things better than the private sector? Do people not pay attention to the incompetence of government-run entities? You can't effectively compare how railways in much smaller European nations do things, with the far larger and more complex US. Ridiculous, plain and simple.

We should take a page out of Italy’s book, they have a great rail system. cheap, efficient, fairly modern trains, pretty frequent service even in small towns (my grandpas town is a tiny town on a rural highway, less than 5,000 people but it still has trains running every 30 min at the minimum to Verona, Bologna, and padova). Plus, there’a also a privately owned train company on high speed train services, so there’s some competition to keep prices down.

I agree that a hybrid system would be best, like you said the lines and hard infrastructure would be owned by Federal, state and local authorities, than they could bid out service contracts at intervals for public transit, and charge flat rates per car for freight. This would mean that taxpayers only have to foot the bill for the immediate investment of a station and lines leading up to it for each project, and than add the station to a complete line schedule it bids out to ensure that companies cant pick and choose coverage based on population sizes. this guarantees access to the public, while allowing competition between companies for better service/price ratios to consumers

Or the govt can make laws to increase competition by blocking mergers and acquisitions and to encourage unique investors per operator. Increased competition will eventually force companies to look towards lesser profitable lines and built new and better infrastructure.

Indian railway are nationalised After decades of chugging in losses, they separated freight operations separate Legislation to transport petroleum across states exclusively on railway And within 2 years railway came in green

I see no way this would happen (and personally strongly oppose nationalisation of any kind in regards to rail infrastructure) 1) US political climate is in no place for adequate discussion on the topic right now: Leftists will push for massive spending while we have been printing cash like crazy for the last 1,5 yrs. Conservatives will either vote against just out of spite, or shout “socialism”. This will just go nowhere. 2) I personally do not believe that passenger rail can succeed in the US. And IMO it is not a matter of circumstance, but sort of universal truth. We are too accustomed to driving or flying, it has in some way been deeply engraved into our culture over the last 80 years, and some places are less willing to change than others. 3)Building intercontinental passenger services is the stupidest idea. They can not compete with air travel in speed and flexibility. In time you have 1 Empire Builder going from Chicago to Portland / Seattle there are way more flights, that take less time, cost less and provide more comfort for the price asked. 4) The only niche where Passenger rail may survive is Commuter and Regional services. Brightline proved that it is possible in Florida, so there is no doubt that it will work in other areas with sufficient population density (See American megaregions map for rough estimates. 5) Nationalising freight trackage WILL be passed down to consumers, and won’t be offset by any of the benefits provided in your proposal. 6) I personally hold no believe in our government, no matter who’s in charge - Biden, AOC, Harris, McConnell - all the same crony scum. And as we still drift left politically I see no opportunity for major change. They WILL fuck it up. Sooner than later, more than we could have expected and in a way, that is either ridiculously stupid or should not have ever been possible, so no thanks, I’ll stick to shitty service now, rather than no service at all later.

Precision Schedule Railroading is like when you're sitting in bumper to bumper stop & go traffic.. then you have the bright idea of, "if everyone pressed the gas at once... .."

I always felt like a hybrid system would work best were a government run rail network had private trains running on it. That's how the trucking industry works, level the economic subsidy playing field and let the market decide who rise to the top. The company that bids highest gets priority on certain stretches of track.

Australia's system might be a good model. The rail network is all-government owned except for some short lines and mine to port railways (particularly in WA). The standard gauge network is all owned by the federal crown corporation Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) except for the standard gauge lines used by freight in NSW, which are leased from the state-owned Transport Asset Holding Entity of New South Wales. The narrow gage lines of Queensland are owned by Queensland Rail, the broad gauge lines of Victoria are owned by VicTrack, the State of South Australia owns the broad gauge lines used by its commuter trains, and the Public Transport Authority of Western Australia (which owns TransPerth and TransWA) own the narrow gauge track in WA. NSW, which is the only state to have voluntarily chose standard gauge, has all its lines owned by the state-owned Transport Asset Holding Entity of New South Wales, with some lines critical to freight being leased to the ARTC. Passenger trains are operated by the state except for the privately operated but Victorian-government-subsidized Overland between Melbourne and Adelaide. Private companies like Aurizon and Pacific National operate freight trains (Queensland Rail sold off its freight division to the private sector about a decade ago). The issue for Australia is that the privately-owned interstate operator Journey Beyond is really owned about luxury train land cruises and not normal intercity transportation.

Great analysis of freight nationalization. I heard a common solution for this is for the government to own all American tracks, similar to Britain's Network Rail, so that the government can take care of track infrastructure and maintenance. However, the reason why nationalizes works in European and Asian nations, especially for passenger rail, is that they place much more emphasis on rail transport while the U.S. focuses *MUCH* more on cars and highways than rail transport, and there is much political deadlock which would stall a new government or state owned passenger rail project in the U.S.

Actually, DB,SNCF, OBB and renfe don’t own the tracks. Due to EU regulations both rail and transport management are split by law :-)

While I'm more believer in Market Socialism over Communism, there are areas that really should been full nationalized like Health, Transport, and Utilities (including internet)

I Australia most railways were once government owned. Each state Government owned and operated the railway within the state. They built a good rail network, but there was a lock of corporation with intestate freight which caused many problems. The federal government setup their own rail business to handle all nation freight. In the ;ate 90's and early 2000's, there was a rail privatization move across the country. The federal government continued to own and fund the rail infrastructure and setup a rail corporation , but sold the freight business and sold rail access to any private company. This seemed to work well and it increased rail traffic on the main eat west line across the continent. However, in the sate where i live, the sate government leased the infrastructure to a private company and they were responsible for maintaining the line and running freight. This has been a disaster and has seen lines closed.