Interesting, because the law demands that Amtrak get priority, to the extent that the railroads have sued Amtrak trying to reduce the strictness of the law, as they've been abusing it.
Hah. So, the thing is, Amtrak gets priority over freight trains so long as it is running according to schedule. Amtrak essentially never runs according to schedule -- many of its trains have 0% on-time performance -- so the freight trains end up getting priority, making Amtrak even later, and so on ad nauseam. Positive feedback loop.
http://www.railwayage.com/index.php/blogs/frank-n-wilner/amt...