Not that with that system, the freight trains do not have to make way for the passenger trains, given that the main passenger line is not used by the freight trains at all, and the passenger line can effectively use nearly stretch of the freight line as a passing loop, with the single line and passing loop system ensuring that individual stretches of the freight lines are vacated for long periods of time.

As to the suggestion that the main focus of medium high speed rail should be to duplicate the route of very high speed rail, I don't get it ... you raise the problem caused if the approach is used where it would not provide an effective supplement to a VHS trunk and where it does not offer substantial real reductions in required capital works, when the simple answer would seem to be, don't use the approach in that context.

However, in the US we have to get out of the old encrusted habits of thought that see real long distance passenger rail as a matter for the two coasts with flyover country receiving slow, infrequent, heavily subsidized, and poorly performing services suffering from delays that can exceed the planned travel time due to the priority enjoyed by freight.


I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.