My experience (Norfolk Southern and CSX operate the tracks in my area) is that I am learning that amtrak is supposed to have priority right here. My personal experience has been almost the opposite. Knock on wood, in my recollection I've never experienced any other significant delay except freight traffic interference. But like, on separate occasions, I've had a 4+ hour delay from Chicago to Buffalo (~8 hour drive), couple hours through NY State, had a 20 minute stop in Syracuse turn into 1.5 hours, all due to freight traffic. I assume the train is going to arrive where I'm going like an hour late at least.

The only significant thing that wasn't freight related, is they split the train in Albany when you are going to NYC or Boston. The second train had some issues, so it took a bit to get a different one, so we were sitting there without power in like, July for an hour or so.