Where they run under wires they don’t run US size trains
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Tell that to India where they run stack trains on flatcars, not down in wells, and on broad gauge. Under high-voltage cat ridiculously high in the air.
What is their OT performance, both freight and passenger. How many 10K net ton unit coal trains, how many 10K net ton grain trains, how many 10K net ton bulk commodity trains of all the other rail borne commodities.
Wow you sure like to fabricate excuses!
Google AI:
China Trains.
Typical trains can be up to 7 kilometers long, carry loads of tens of thousands of tons, and operate at speeds ranging from 80 to 200 km/h (50 to 124 mph) with some high-speed freight trains reaching 350 km/h (217 mph).
Here’s a more detailed breakdown:
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Length:
- Some freight trains can be over 7 kilometers (4.3 miles) long.
- For example, a heavy-haul freight railway tested 30,000-ton coal trains that stretched over 4 km (2.5 miles).
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Tonnage:
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Loads can be 130 tonnes per wagon and tens of thousands of tonnes per train.
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The Daqin Railway transports more than 1 million tonnes of coal to the east sea shore of China every day.
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Typical freight train speeds range from 80 to 200 km/h (50 to 124 mph)
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China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) developed a high-speed freight train designed to transport freight at a speed of 350 km/h.
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China’s railway network is extensive, with over 159,000 kilometers of railways in operation as of 2023.
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Rail freight turnover in China reached 3.65 trillion ton-kilometers in 2023.
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China’s high-speed rail network is the longest and busiest in the world, with over 45,000 kilometers of high-speed lines.
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Here at home PRR used to run lots of freight under CAT. So did NH, GN and CMStP&P.
Could it be that CSX on the Richmond line wants to preserve the ability to use the passenger only track in the event of an emergency?
Amtrak threw through freight OFF the NEC when they got ownership.
To be fair, one reason for throwing freight off the line was to reduce cost of maintaining class 6/7 track.
My understanding was that Conrail took down the wires on their freight lines after being sued over a trespasser being electrocuted when standing on a boxcar.
[Zug’s comment below sounds plausible]
I always heard it was because Amtrak was charging them a premium to run electrics on the NEC. And the electric fleet was getting pretty old and needing replaced.
We’re talking 70s and 80s. Even if someone got electrocuted, I doubt it would have made the news. I know of an incident that did, but that was well into the late 90s/early 00s.
I think you need to either look at the pictures or post them in the forum. Personally I wouldn’t have posted the above myself. It’s not really serious.
https://www.cargo-partner.com/trendletter/issue-25/highspeedrail-freight-in-china
It is a hollowed out passenger trainset carrying airline cargo containers in one case. In another it is multitudes of carry on california closet bins stacked two high on another hollowed out passenger train set. C’mon. 
As for the other claims made via Generative AI. I need to see more proof, AI and search indexes are easily fooled. Would help if you could post a video from China that was not obvious AI video or photoshopped stuff. Ordinarily I would not ask for proof but I know the CCP is highly expert at misleading people and spend a fortune every year with their misleading PR campaigns. China’s internet PR campaigns on China rail are like a nonstop Joe Isuzu commercial. 
All the HSR “freight” trains have been M&E or ‘priority package express’ trains, and it is not particularly surprising that these are thinly-modified passenger equipment. Even conventional ISO container traffic starts to require active suspension (or at the very least, very careful magnetorheological damping) by about 140mph, and we can gainfully recall the peak acceleration and shock reported in the Acela testing on Metro-North and extrapolate how to attenuate 189g accelerations in heavier suspension arrangements.
Perhaps amusingly, I was just looking at whether ‘Austria Slab Track’ was capable of the same ‘class 9 + HAL simultaneously’ performance as in the FRA testing a couple of decades ago. There is no objective reason higher-weight equipment couldn’t be ‘designed for’ – just that over and over and over the economic need for any kind of high-speed freight here has not been sustainable.
Oh you can move freight as fast as want however you might not like the condition it shows up in.
I and my wife witnessed some of these freight trains in 2023 with our own eyes. No photos
Believe it or not but you are tiresome with you anti China bias
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Presumably, the railroads have the financial skills and financial models to determine if there is a positive return for electrification of all or part of the U.S. rail system. My guess is the answer is no.
Whether the railroads would be able to get taxpayer dollars to help cover the cost of electrification is problematic.
We haul rail frieght in the United States to turn a profit. We don’t do it to prove we are leading edge to the rest of the world and lose our shirts financially in the process. Just been my perception. 
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Yeah that’s the goal making money not seeing just how fast you can move it. Now speed is nice sometimes when you can get the customer to pay for it. Hell my old bossman had what he called the normal rate the express rate and the merde has hit the fans rates.
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The saying from racing applies - “Speed costs money, how fast can you afford to go”.
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The point is there are plenty of examples in the world now and the US in the past of electrified lines running freight. CSX can’t even allow it on an adjacent track (as IC did Richton Park northward).
I doubt the issue is having the wires over the train and the cat posts and infrastructure adjacent to it. It’ll be liability for accidents, and unfounded mandates to provide and maintain it.
There is no better solution for the transition than dual-mode-lite, and I argue that represents a perfectly adequate long-term solution as well.
You pay for much of it with Federal and local tax credits, including a dollar-for-dollar allowance of state property and franchise/excise tax, to the extent there is no ‘national defense enablement’ legislation that fosters electrification as a long-term “national” improvement financed as part of essential infrastructure. The question of establishing and supporting the necessary entities to build out and maintain lowest-expense constant-tension cat or smart third rail remains something I expect to be essential.
I fail to see how your dual mode hobbyhorse addresses liability issues. And I don’t think those liability issues are the stumbling block if funding were solved. With railroads such as CSX, the operative, simple words are “Won’t” rather than “Can’t”
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