The US Heartland has been hollowed out, so there is probably little business for the railways where you are.
There has likely been an increase in efficiency in how rail is used.
Where is Willie Green?
If you want to send me a Freepmail message with a general location where you live, I can do some research on this for you. I work as a civil engineer and transportation infrastructure planning/design is my specialty, so I usually know where to track down information about trends and developments in the railroad and trucking industries.
Such as it ever was.
Airports too, so many near misses.
I think much of it is smart phones because most everybody is distracted from job, school— their life.
I don’t think society was ready to handle portable computers.
Too many careless mistakes nowadays in everything, and everywhere.
The only common denominators I see are smart phones and lowered standards.
Trains are longer now than they used to be and this is especially true in flat areas of the country. As Jonty said above the industrial base has also been hollowed out so more intermodal transport has been pushed to the coasts where we import goods (less movement of materials within the nation).
The railroads are still the most cost-effective (and green) way to move goods but the politicians are determined to electrify them sooner or later causing the same disruptions and unforeseen issues that “green energy” does everywhere else.
Boston’s MBTA subway/trolley system has absolutely gone off the rails.
Probably affirmative action hires
RR tracks become a new bike trail or hiking trail with some catchy name.
The RR company is just getting a jump on the day when the Indiana Transportation Commission outlaws diesel powered trains and requires all trains to be all-electric. It’s easy to rip out all your lines than comply with that diktat.
They are following California’s “lead” on this critical matter.
I do like occasionally watching the trains on Virtual Railfan....
https://www.youtube.com/@VirtualRailfan
Rail lines come and go all the time. I lived in the White Mountains of Arizona for seven months long ago and my property adjoined the Apache / White Mountain Short Line Railway. There wasn’t a lot of traffic on the line. When I went back to visit 20 years later, all the track and ties were gone.
Burlington Northern is doing a major expansion and upgrade of its main lines through Idaho. They are completing a second bridge across Lake Pend Oreille and have added many miles of second track so trains do not need to pull onto sidings to pass. Unfortunately, lots of BNSF traffic is sending low-cost, low-sulfur Powder River Basin sub-bituminous coal from Wyoming to China.
Routing of rail lines has changed in my neighborhood. The main rail track which passed by my house and was the key rail-link between Houston and all points Southwest. The rails have been removed and now the same path is The Westpark Toll Road. The railroads now route everything through Dallas to Houston instead of directly to Houston from the Southwest. It has to do, I think, with rail routing efficiency.
The same is true of the rail line between Houston and San Antonio which paralleled I-10. That rail line is now gone.
Most likely the results of poor and deferred maintenance and heavier use with longer & heavier trains. Maybe a little deliberate sabotage thrown in as well.
Trains just aren’t as useful. Rails are expensive to maintain, and insanely expensive to expand. Roads are used more, easier to maintain, and already being expanded. They’re probably pulling them up to use elsewhere, unused tracks age pretty well.
Every small Hoosier town was connected by rail
Our surveyors office has a 1800s map on the wall that’s quite interesting . There was rail lines every few miles
I’ve removed a few miles of rail beds over the years. Just last year we did cleared the trees from it and loaded out the stone. Mixed with the cinders, it makes an awesome roadbed for driveways
Most interesting was one stretch that the owner showed me the deed to that was signed by Abe himself
Well over 100 years old, it was cordouroyed with logs throughout low ground and still had bark on the logs
Rail is now for long-haul point-to-point service, such as from coal mines to power plants or ethanol plants to tank farms. UPS CACH in Chicago is their 2nd largest hub and was built specifically on the old Sante Fe property to take advantage of rail transport to either coast. A lot of Brown rides the train!
Some rail lines are more active than others. When I had a small acreage in Davis Junction, IL, there were train tracks adjacent to my back fence leading to the junction for which the village was named.
I saw everything from lumber, long metal pipes, windmill blades, tanks, hazardous chemicals, unmarked tankers, but especially HCFS (high fructose corn syrup) going past my backyard constantly. That was in 2014. It is still like that as far as I know (we know our neighbors).
Hard times those were.
Sabotage.