1. Trains run through very long multi jurisdictional route often with no meaningful police along the routes and no access due to lack of roads along the route. This was especially true historically but still remains true today. Train robberies have been a real thing for a long time with the robbers not being stupid and attacking the train far from police presence. Further rail facilities require 24x7 protection that local police can’t afford to offer.

2. They often have specific laws at a federal level and as I understand it wouldn’t depend on general local courts and prosecutors, particularly on interstate lines. For spur lines it’ll usually be state prosecutors.

The crux of it is the rail companies probably don’t WANT to hire police if they absolutely can avoid it. That’s very expensive and I’m sure they would rather just eat losses, pay insurance premiums, and whine to local and state police for more coverage at the tax payers expense.

Sure they want their own police. Nothing better than being able to investigate yourself and find you did nothing wrong.

And when you call your local PD, good luck getting anywhere when another police force discontinued the investigation and local PD knows little/nothing about railways.

Canada has similar private rail police and that’s basically what happened at least once: https://theconversation.com/why-major-canadian-railways-must...

I think the better question is why are they investigating accidents in the first place instead of limiting jurisdiction exclusively to essentially loss prevention.

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Item 1 is likely related to the spread of the railroads and how important they were so early on. I knew about railroad cops, and the no Social Security eligibility, but it wasn't until the recent strike threats that I learned how railroad employment is so different from most other employment because there are specifically different laws. The importance of the railroads is why there is so much checkerboarded land in the western US, it was given away in grants to the railroads. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Checkerboarding_(land)

The railroads using shorter trains would allow them to keep the trains in the railyards, where they have more physical control. But that would involve more employees and seems to be something the rail companies are specifically avoiding for various reasons.

The railroads have them because there wasn't much government out where they were operating when they became necessary.