I felt that one as a Brazilian (govt literally went "fuck trains, cars are the future!" for ~30 years starting in the 1950s)

It still is, if you're a piece of rail freight.

This has more to do with how commuter trains are forced to give priority to freight trains, causing delays, than actual travel times

It's not that extreme, but even if we assume a 200 mph HSR train:

• It would still take 12 hours to drive the 2500 miles from Los Angeles (California) to Jacksonville (Florida)
• It would still take 6 hours to drive the 1200 miles from Jacksonville (Florida) to Boston (Massachusetts)

Admittedly, there's a point to be made that hardly anyone would drive from Florida straight to Massachusetts or the other way around, but the distance is still impressive.

Airplanes who fly at 600 mph reduce that travel time to 1/3rd (excluding boarding, which can be time-consuming). I did not calculate how much a train ticket would cost, compared to a flight ticket.

Admittedly, i travel 400 miles by train in Europe all the time. (a couple times every year). It takes about 6 hours in total.

Nah, Idaho can get fucked.

They know what they did

One reason for this is hurricanes are more frequent, and sometimes the notice level is too short to have safe evacuation from Miami through highway systems. There has been anger over deaths from evacuation, when a storm warning did not destroy as many homes as was "hoped"/feared.

I think because it has large populations on both coasts?

Quote from 'The People Under The Stairs' ; "Sometimes the only way out is the way in."

Chock Full-0-Sea ports

Is really the big reason. Less and less portage is going through the traditional East Coast hubs of NY and NJ, mostly going to places like Louisiana , Texas, and Florida instead.

Historically Florida has always been pretty big on trains as well. In fact you used to be able to take a train from Florida to Cuba....kinda. You could take a train across the overseas rail line to Key West where they would ferry the whole train car over to Cuba.

We used to be an actual country that did stuff, and that's because we weren't afraid to do cool stuff with trains.

Flattest state in the union, which I learned not too long ago. As to raw materials? We don't even have rocks down here. I can only think of one place I've seen natural rock, and I'm all over the woods and swamps.

wont stop it from going under water though.

Look how many tracks are aligned for consecutive stops in the state though

You-know-who oughta be grateful he only had to stumble through pronouncing acetaminophen.

It's about need. Like yeah, Chicago through the Dakotas is easy as pie, but the demand would be to seattle and that crosses two mountain ranges and the only stops between Minnesota and Seattle with much demand there would be at national parks.

Like yeah it would be awesome as hell and the American version of the CCP would absofuckinglutely have a high speed rail to Yellowstone and the badlands since they're on the way. But Yellowstone is past the start of the mountains and you need to connect all the way to seattle for it to be more than a vanity project.

The important lines are the NY-Chicago (land is dirt cheap for lots of it, mountains are small, and population is dense with several makor cities you can hit) and the west coast line (basically actually do California high speed rail, then extend it from San Diego to just outside British Columbia. From there the east coast line, something involving texas, or stretching the ny-chicago line is good.

But dood. Put a USPS fishbowl-connected car on the end with a sorter working inside and prepping for each stop, and watch FedEx sweat.

Freight rail is a lot less than it should be as well.

It is also owned by Private Industry without clear rules on what they can charge in that more than it should be.

The rails were only made with eminent domain, Private Industry should not be able to screw people on it, or give preference to large companies over people and small ones.

Then I must be autistic then, because I love trains and dream of having high speed rail.

I know two neurodivergent people that love trains, one is into models and the other trainspotting. They are correct too, trains are awesome.

Yes, but how does that pertain to this picture, I would need like a before and after photo to know any context for this image, thank you for sharing, though I appreciate the response response