Trains

The issues with American railroading are deep rooted and go back over a century. They are not, however, an intrinsic flaw of private ownership. Rather, the way we do things here is uniquely fucked up, in fact the railroad companies themselves would likely be better off if they did things more like the rest of the world.

In Japan, their 3 largest railroads are privately owned, and provide the best service in the world. One of the reasons for this is that they actually care about their long term profitability, rather than some hyper-nerdy funny productivity numbers. But the other reason is that they diversified their business to things like real estate. These other holdings are backed up by the existence of the railroad, helping stimulate their growth along with the rest of the local economy. This essentially allows the railroad companies to tap in to that external benefit they provide, but would otherwise never see the results of. The money made there ends up invested back into the railway, keeping everything sustainable.

I’ll be clear with you and say that I support U.S. rail nationalization. But the fact that Japan has that great of a network while being privately owned deserves to be understood by every rail advocate in the west. Especially in the U.S. where it can inform us on our understanding of our own heavily flawed rail network.