Can you share some article to back up your facts? All I could find here is, american freight trains are longer and run over a longer distance.

: https://www.freightwaves.com/news/railroad/us-and-european-f....

After living next to train tracks in SF (for 7 yrs) and in PDX for (over 2 yrs) I can tell you that train tracks traffic is not even 10% of Euro cities like Stuttgart, Rotterdam let alone Berlin or Paris.

If traffic(freight+passenger)US is roughly equal to traffic(freight+passenger)EU then, the tracks should be equally busy no?

Here's something written for non-industry people: https://www.economist.com/briefing/2010/07/22/high-speed-rai...

Your article notes that rail freight costs are much lower in the US (for shippers), while profitability is high. That suggests that the US rail network is... good for freight?

I don't know about Portland, but SF has almost no freight traffic. The caltrain tracks don't go anywhere (what are you going to do with a thousand containers at 4th and King?)

> Their owners worry that the plans will demand expensive train-control technology that freight traffic could do without.

Oh no, a control system to install on a locomotives and tracks that already costs millions of dollars, how could they afford that?

> Most of all they fret that the spending of federal money on upgrading their tracks will lead the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), the industry watchdog, to impose tough conditions on them

Are you kidding me?

These excuses are pathetic.

> Add the fact that freight trains do not stick to a regular timetable, but run variable services at short notice to meet demand, and the scope for congestion grows.

You were just bragging about having 2.5x the productivity, I would happily trade competent consumer rail for you "only" having 2x productivity.

Exactly so coming back to my original question: my cannot US invest in high speed train from 4th and King to Napa valley? What is holding it back?

NIMBYs. No one in napa or Marin counties want a train.

How so? If we prioritized passengers, then rail freight will regularly take several extra hours to get places. Would that even be a real problem? Would anything else bad happen?

That would be a huge problem. You'd see freeways entirely congested with trucking instead. Freeways that are congested enough as it is. We need to build a grade separated passenger rail network.

This still doesnt make sence to me - the train shipping coal across the country weighs like an aircraft carrier and is about as fast.

This not a last-minute delivery, takes days to arrive, and presumably they know their material demans many days in advance. Whats a few extra hours going to do?

Is my understanding of the system wrong?

What if we made sure trucks still cost more?