I’m guessing they don’t put forward any arguments related to their climate impact, but out of curiosity do we know how prioritizing passenger trains in the US impacts the way these goods are transported ? Is this a minor inconvenience for the industry that’s they’re fussing about and nothing would actually change, or would the goods have to significantly shift to truck transportation ?
I live in a country where there’s the opposite problem: we have a lot of passenger trains, but they’re attempting to revive freight trains because truck transportation is quite CO2 costly. Reduced emissions are definitely only one advantage amongst many for public trains, but I’m wondering how much you save/lose by replacing(?) one freight train passing with passenger train.