Go out and look at a rail line sometime. You'll often see terrible trackage - rotten ties, warped lines, missing parts...rail is like all other roads. No one cares that it's falling apart until someone dies.
There's a couple lines that run by the building I'm working out of - they're spurs, so the trains run dead slow, and it's often just an engine and 3-4 cars pulling finished goods out of a processing plant. But there's badly warped rails and parts that are partially washed out. If they went any faster than a crawl it would fall to pieces. Go a little further down that line and the crossings are really just a suggestion with some metal in them.
I'm in Poland right now, Warsaw just replaced aging light rail with modern rails and cars. The locals are pissed because the brand new system clangs and bumps and makes a ton of noise, while their old system was very quiet. Go figure. The odd thing is, I've looked at the rails and there are no seams in the joints, yet this thing clacks like crazy.
Modern rail is usually continuous rail with concrete ties, especially in places that use passenger rail.
The cars must be noisy.
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