Amtrak is the only passenger major railroad operator in the U.S. Unlike railroads in other developed countries, Amtrak is chronically a mess and most people have never traveled in its trains except the other in the east and west coasts and some long distance routes. While US freight railroads are the most efficient and most profitable in the world, the story with Amtrak is not the same. While Amtrak’s potential is huge it is mostly useless for long distance travel since it does own much of the tracks. With that said, below is a neat infographic showing some of the differences between Amtrak and US freight railroads:

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Source: FreightWaves