Rail was owned by the wealthiest and they made their money shipping freight.

Lobbyists got the US government to “sell” them the actual railways, but they had to maintain it.

So if/when there’s a conflict on the rail, freight gets to go first. They’re giant heavy trains moving insanely slowly, so even tho passenger could get by faster, they sit for hours waiting.

Back to private companies maintaining the rails, they did cost/benefit analysis and decided since they pay insurance anyways, it’s not smart to fix anything till insurance rates go up.

The problem is when a wreck happens there’s public outcry, so the government uses taxpayer funds to fix it quickly.

They wait till an accident happens, insurances pays for just the cargo, and that’s insured by the supper so the train insurance never goes up. Taxpayers pay to clean up the wreck and put in new tracks.

With the current system, the wrecks will keep happening more and more frequently because stuff only gets fixed after it fails, and only that one spot.