WILL THERE BE TRAINS IN OUR FUTURE? - All Aboard: The Complete North American Train Travel Guide - page 261

OK, how safe are trains . . . really? If done right, a high-speed
rail system is perfectly safe. Certainly in the case of the French
and Japanese systems, we can take that statement literally—they
have perfect safety records. Here at home, it's quite true that
Amtrak has been less than perfect, although I know of no seri-
ous accident involving a passenger train where responsibility has
been laid at Amtrak's doorstep. In the worst incident, some 40
people were killed when a barge collided with a bridge while
traveling through a dense fog. The barge knocked the tracks out
of alignment moments before the train started across. Amtrak
has compiled an excellent safety record, and the fact remains that
you're many times safer on a cross-country train ride than you
are driving your own car to the local convenience store for a
bottle of aspirin.
Ideally (by that I mean the way they do it in Japan and France)
passenger trains should operate on their own exclusive rights-of-
way. Except for most of the Northeast Corridor, Amtrak is forced
to share tracks with freight trains, which results in increased rail
traffic operating at different speeds. It's a safe arrangement, but it's
one that often requires slower speeds or delays for Amtrak trains.
Small Towns Need Trains
Often overlooked in the plane-car-train argument are the thou-
sands of U.S. and Canadian communities for which the train is the
only public transportation link to the rest of the country. Canada's
VIA Rail runs a twice-weekly train that passes through more than
80 tiny communities on its thousand-mile journey from Winni-
peg to Hudson Bay. Amtrak also serves countless towns all over
America, towns that have no airport and are bypassed even by
buses. High-speed trains will never be a realistic option for most
of these communities, but the people in these small towns will be
more than glad if they can simply keep their existing rail service.