Last summer, the Justice Department under the Biden administration sued a freight rail company. It alleged that Norfolk Southern routinely failed to give Amtrak passenger trains preference over freight trains, which is required by law. 

Now, Norfolk Southern has asked a judge to move the case to a different federal court or dismiss it. Whether the Justice Department under Donald Trump will continue pursuing the case, however, is unclear. 

This dispute stems from the creation of Amtrak in the early 1970s. Before that, freight rail companies had to offer passenger rail service, but it was losing them a lot of money.

So Congress created Amtrak to take over passenger trains. In return, the freight companies had to give Amtrak priority on the rails, according to Sean Jeans-Gail, vice president of policy and government affairs at the Rail Passengers Association.

“Because unlike tank cars full of coal, passengers mind when they are put out on a siding for three, four or five hours,” he said.

But, despite the law, Amtrak passengers still get stuck waiting for freight trains to go by pretty often — especially on long-distance routes, Jeans-Gail said.

“That makes it very difficult for passengers. Often, many of them have connections. Some of them are traveling with business; they have meetings,” he said. “And it really hurts ridership.”

Enter the DOJ lawsuit last summer. It was just the second time ever that the Justice Department had sued a freight rail company for delaying Amtrak.

“By any measure, it’s a pretty dramatic step,” said Robert Puentes, vice president and director at the Brookings Institution. But that dramatic step was then under the administration of a president nicknamed “Amtrak Joe.”

“And I think it’s not surprising that Norfolk Southern is seeking to have this lawsuit dismissed this year, and probably going to have support from Trump’s Department of Justice,” Puentes said, “given the way that he’s talked about deregulation, given the way that he’s talked about Amtrak in the past.”

The Justice Department declined to comment. So did Amtrak. 

Norfolk Southern argues that the lawsuit takes an overly broad view of just how much preference it should give Amtrak trains. It says what the DOJ is asking for would be like clearing roads for the president’s motorcade and argues that could create gridlock throughout the rail system. 

Handling both freight and passenger trains — often on single-track railroads — is complicated for dispatchers, noted Albert Churella, a professor at Kennesaw State University.

“It’s not simply as easy as passing one train around another, the way you would move a sports car around a slow moving semi-truck on the highway,” he said.

One way to fix the problem? “Is to massively increase the amount of capital investment allocated to passenger rail transportation in the United States,” Churella said — as in, add a lot more rail to handle both passenger and freight trains. 

But Churella added that he’s pretty doubtful that the federal government, especially under the Trump administration, is willing to make that kind of investment.