Thanks guys (anyone else who wishes to chip in, please do)
I recognize that there will be variables, and situational factors that make it nigh impossible to condense it all into a “rule of thumb”, per se. I was just looking for general POV from guys who get put in that position. In one sense, getting paid to sit in a siding has got to be easy money, on the other hand, the boredom has got to be frustrating.
What got me to pondering this, believe it or not, was pondering dual versus single track main. Seems to me that the railroads prefer single track with effective signaling over double track, whenever the former can get the job done. Which probably has been part of the strategy where RR’s have actually torn out second mains.
Evidently, the cost of adding the signals, their control links, and their central control is more than offset by the savings in maintenance and operation of the rails removed (seems like there would be a good story for the mag in there somewhere, analyzing the thought process involved)
The down side to such a strategy, would be the possible impact on the labor factor, paying crews to sit in sidings, while their peers whizz on by… etc
If I’m reading Zardoz and ValleyX correctly, it appears that the answer is more tied to the whim of the railroad (aka “priority”) than anything else.
If they assign a train as “hot” enough, they CAN get it through.
[As a side note, I have to wonder how much of the story we hear about choked rail infastructure in America is more rooted on railroad “priority” than anything else? *(keeping that mainline tied up for hot shots carrying loads for demanding customers , such as UPS, and the like). Maybe (in such an example) those pleas for taxpayer subsidy to add rail capacity are more of a subsidy to UPS stockholders, than to railroad stockholders?]