Yeah, passenger trains pretty much have no choice if there is a 2 mile freight train, a single track, and a short siding. The passenger train has to pull off and wait. There really need to be something like financial penalties for the rail carrier every time that happens. Something to make extremely long trains uneconomical.
One thing they’ve been working on in my neck of the woods on the Amtrak Cascades line is passenger train only track that runs in the same right-of-way. I’m not sure exactly how it works, but I assume that passenger trains run on it by default and switch to the freight rail or sidings when there is a passenger train going the other way. The Seattle-Portland leg is already congested between freight and passenger traffic. Additional track should aid on time performance for the eventual target of 13 round trips per day. They also got the line rerouted off a single track route that was a serious bottleneck.