Surprise! Freight Interference Still Drives Most Delays

by Jim Mathews / President & CEO

The latest host-railroad performance report from Amtrak released today confirms that nearly two-thirds of passenger-train delays outside the Northeast Corridor originate on host freight railroads, underscoring how strongly on-time performance across the national network depends on infrastructure Amtrak doesn’t control.

According to the March 2026 Host Railroad Report, host railroads were responsible for 979 delay minutes per 10,000 train-miles (64.9%), compared with 361 minutes attributable to Amtrak and 169 minutes to third parties. As has been the case for many years, freight-train interference remained the single largest category of delay, exceeding slow orders and routing-dispatching issues, and continuing a long-running pattern across much of the national system.

Performance results varied widely by route, but long-distance trains again posted the weakest reliability overall, averaging 54.5% on-time performance in March. The Southwest Chief, Floridian, Empire Builder, and Sunset Limited recorded some of the lowest scores among long-distance services. By contrast, state-supported corridor routes averaged 82.5% on-time performance, while Northeast Corridor services reached 83.6%, highlighting the reliability advantage of passenger-controlled infrastructure.

Several corridor routes — including the Ethan Allen Express, Maple Leaf, Borealis, Downeaster, and Vermonter — showed notable improvement compared with their recent 12-month averages, while routes such as the Empire Builder and Sunset Limited declined relative to trailing 12-months’ performance.

Improving reliability across much of the national network depends less on onboard performance and more on reducing freight-train interference and strengthening accountability for passenger-train dispatching on host railroads. It’s why the Justice Dept.’s settlement with Norfolk Southern over Crescent timekeeping was so important, and it’s why we need to continue to highlight freight interference as a problem to be solved as Union Pacific moves ahead in its bid to acquire Norfolk Southern.