Just out of curiosity where about are you taking this? Amtrak in the northeast corridor is a vastly different service from Amtrak in the rest of the country.

That's because American rail tracks have never been built for speed. Some time ago there was an article about a new (or completely rebuilt) track, and they were happy to save a few million on the project by building it in a way that limits the speed to 80-100mph, instead of spending just a few percent more that could have enabled 200mph for bullet trains.

Still ridiculous that it's slower than driving.

And that's a very short trip. Most people wouldn't take a plane anyway to go somewhere that's a 5-hour drive away. So I don't think that's very representative of what it would be like for the average person to replace an airline trip with a rail trip.

I tried to take an Amtrak from Albuquerque to Denver, a 7ish hour drive. The train is over a day, i think closing in on 2 days. And about 4 times the price of a plane ticket.

Edit: Amtrak's ticket finder was down last night. It is 44 hours one way, $310 for one way coach, $1600 for private.

the kind of person that would take a train would never want to go to SD/WY

But people who live in SD/WY might want to go other places?

There was also the whole auto industry conspiracy to destroy commuter rail and public transportation.

Hey at least deutsche bahn has connections and a lot of rail. You can at least theoretically get somewhere using DB

Trains are so huge in Europe thanks to the wars of the 17th-19th centuries.

America is roughly the same size and only now has half the population of Europe.

In 1800 Europe had about 150 million people. That’s about half the current population density of the USA for landmass BUT still extremely dense populations around the capital cities in the countries.

A nationalized train system was a lot easier for a individual nation the geographic size of Virginia with the a population larger than current US states.

Especially when your neighbor is invading you every 20 years.

American Rail during the civil war helped the north dominate the south (though the rivers of the USA may have been even more beneficial for the north) BUT showed the need for off rail transport and helped usher in the military application of wheeled and tracked vehicles that can go off rail. Weird how that works.

Yeep, that sure seems like a pretty good read on the situation. Really not looking forward to the next few weeks of them grabbing everything they can and running. They're already trying to AI-ify foodstamps for "fraud detection" which is just fucking insane. Revolutions start when people go hungry and hoo boy 6 million people is a lot of gambling on apathy...

(IDK why that post was removed, but it appears to have been removed. The OP might have deleted it or the mods??)

edit: Oh

And just how are you supposed to get a train there? There's no tracks! This cockamamie plan will never work!

It's because of freight.

Also, I can go see my sister in 3 hours. Or drive 16, I'm getting older so I have to make stops. Or I can take a few days. It's $60 to fly or $400+ on train. Even then I would rather be on a train but that's not an option.

Who the hell would ride it? Everyone going to Atlanta is just using it as a layover to go somewhere else!

Autobots

...and my axe!

Yeah, and there are several regions in the USA served by commuter rail.

The point I’m making entirely is that the series of rail systems that have been connected in Europe were created for a purpose other than “this is the right choice for the environment and people”.

I don’t disagree we’d be better served with more focus on rail.

It was only done in Europe to the extent it was because it was necessary for sovereignty.

It wasn’t done altruistically for the people, it was done to move armies from one side of the country to another quickly.

The USA didn’t have a couple centuries of war fought between its states to build the rail system that Europe now thumbs its nose at the USA about.

In 1800 France had roughly 27 million people. In a state about the size of Texas.

In 2026 Texas has 32 million people.

1800s France had nearly the population density of modern day Texas.

Germany 24 million or so, Austria/Hunagry another 23 million

Mind you Belgium and The Netherlands combined for nearly 6 million, which was larger than the population of the USA in 1800.

This is how Europe supported its railroads.

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say, but neat picture.