Panel: Freight and passenger rail can share tracks with strategic upgrades, panelists say

A moderated panel on rail corridors on Aug. 27 heard that passenger trains can operate on freight tracks, but only with coordinated planning, targeted infrastructure upgrades and shared operational modeling. Elaine, an Amtrak board member, said reestablishing a separate national passenger network would be “prohibitively expensive” and that the pragmatic path is to collaborate with Class I railroads on corridor upgrades such as grade separation, siding and selective double-tracking.

"Amtrak's recent work through STB with the class 1 partners has shown that we can do better than we've done in the past," Elaine said, citing corridor-specific agreements that have improved on-time performance. She added that Amtrak can lead on grant applications or serve as capital-delivery staff where appropriate, but stressed the need for reliable data from freight operators to build realistic plans.

French, a railroad presenter on the panel, urged stakeholders to treat freight and passenger service like mixed highway traffic: plan acceleration and deceleration lanes and model the mix of users. "You have to figure out how do you have that partnership," he said, pointing to Northwest examples involving WSDOT and Sound Transit.

Katie, representing Union Pacific's interline/passenger operations, said freight operations can help underwrite higher-class track and maintenance costs: "Having freight there to help share in that maintenance, cost makes it much more feasible." Katie also pointed to the Lincoln Corridor in Illinois as an example where multi-party partnership produced a costly but achievable upgrade over roughly a decade.

The panel emphasized that workable shared corridors require clear, realistic ridership projections, mutual respect for freight capacity, and corridor-specific operational modeling. Where agreements have been signed, panelists said, on-time performance has improved; where they have not, passenger performance tends to suffer.

Looking ahead, panelists recommended that community planners engage railroads early and use shared modeling and data to shape grant applications and corridor design rather than assuming passenger service can be simply inserted into existing freight patterns.