But the ripple effects of the collapse could be huge — for commuters, freight haulers, residents and businesses around the bridge on detour routes and for politicians in Olympia, Washington's capital.
The older Hoved Line now handles commuter and freight traffic, while the Gardermoen Line handles high-speed passenger trains and freight trains laden with jet fuel for the airport.
The commuter and freight trains were visible to each other for only about five seconds before the crash, investigators said.
A rail-safety law passed by Congress in 2008 gave commuter and freight railroads until the end of 2015 to install the systems, known as positive train control.
After auditing Alaska's maintenance, the aviation agency said it would turn to nine other major airlines, and then to commuter and freight airlines.
Amtrak is paying to have the system installed on all commuter and freight trains that use the tracks in the area, as well as its own trains.
The Northeast Corridor is the busiest in North America, with approximately 2,200 Amtrak, commuter and freight trains operating over some portion of the Washington-Boston route each day, according to Amtrak.
In a railway network, different kinds of traffic run on the infrastructure — high-speed express trains, slow stopping trains, commuter trains, freight trains and (sometimes) specialist maintenance and repair trains.
There is ever more pressure on our mixed-use railway, where inter-city trains share tracks with commuter and freight services – and as more trains run, the constraints of our Victorian railways start to show.
These plans to increase capacity and shorten journey times on intercity, commuter and freight services are, alongside our plans for high speed rail, absolutely key to securing our country's prosperity in the decades ahead.
