For the most part, adhering to laws, rules, regulations and/or just plain, routine expectations avoids many problems over the long run.

Under a law passed by Congress in 1973, trains of the rail passenger service Amtrak are required to be given priority when they cross a freight railroad’s tracks.

That requirement makes sense.

However, the Norfolk Southern railroad company, regarding its New York to New Orleans route, is accused of causing what have been described as “chronic delays” by forcing Amtrak trains to wait while its trains of massive length pass.

For instance, there has been at least one report of Norfolk Southern dispatchers having made an Amtrak train wait for three freight trains to pass. Nevertheless, the full scope of the problem — involving one, two, how many freight trains given the right-of-way contrary to the 1973 law — has not been fully discussed publicly.

That is worth pondering and questioning as all of the major freight railroads — and Norfolk Southern is one of them — now routinely run trains that stretch two miles long or longer.

The bottom line: Numerous Amtrak trains, at least on that New York to New Orleans route, are not reaching their destinations on time, causing inconvenience and the anger and anxiety that go along with missing officially scheduled arrival times.

An appropriate question: How are other Amtrak routes on tracks shared with the Norfolk Southern “freights” faring on the right-of-way issue?

In particular, is there a problem through Altoona and Johnstown like the one affecting the New York-to-New Orleans route?

People considering a train trip for business or whatever other reasons need to know. They need to know whether they should believe what the Amtrak trip schedules seem to promise.

Judging from U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg’s description of the existing right-of-way situation, “uneven at best,” skepticism would seem to be in order.

More importantly, the traveling public needs an honest explanation of how and why the situation has gotten so bad — why there has been such lax enforcement of the 1973 law.

Up to now, there only has been one case in which the Justice Department intervened on behalf of enforcement of the 1973 law, despite numerous complaints about alleged violations, but that is about to change, according to an Associated Press article published in the Mirror’s July 31 edition.

The Justice Department has filed a lawsuit against Norfolk Southern, with U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland commenting that “Americans should not experience travel delays because rail carriers break the law,” the July 31 article says.

Responding to the lawsuit filing, NS spokesman Tom Crosson said the railroad is “committed to complying with the law” and “we hope to resolve these concerns and continue to make progress together.”

Nevertheless, “committed” and “hoping to resolve” are toothless without pro-active management personnel determined to fix what is wrong.

Regarding train ridership, an Aug. 1 Wall Street Journal article claimed that “a renaissance for American rail travel is upon us,” with Amtrak being on track to set an annual record for ridership as of June, having served 24.1 million riders since the beginning of its fiscal year in October — up 18% from a year earlier.

But don’t look for that upward trend to continue if the right-of-way issue keeps undermining travel schedules, turning people off to train travel.