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Have you ever tried to go from New York to San Francisco? It's the same distance as driving from Porto, Portugal to Abisko, Sweden. You go through 8 countries.

Have you ever tried to go from New York to San Francisco? It's the same distance as driving from Porto, Portugal to Abisko, Sweden. You go through 8 countries. Or Porto to Mariupol, Ukraine, in only 7 countries. It's faster in the US, through 10 states as big as European countries. We have more people stretched out over more land with more varying regions with more varying needs and costs with more conservative social, political and economic values. Nearly all of our trade involves trucking and cargo ships, with freight making up the raw material shipping that isn't time sensitive. It makes no financial sense whatsoever to fund railroads. We have extensive interstate highways and most of our people have cars. Why pay for a railroad the size of Europe when you don't have to go all over Europe, and all your needs are met via the existing shipping mechanisms? What would be the point? If you took our cars away, maybe it would make sense, maybe. But before we pay for railroads we might need to pay for our health care or education.

mkempe 8y ago
Indeed, I've travelled from NY to SF in both directions by road, rail, and air. The only experience that was much worse than my travels in Europe and Japan was by rail (namely Amtrak). There are more people in Europe, there is more land in Europe, etc. Stop with the fake excuses. Europeans enjoy all of it: cars, trains, and airplanes. The simple fact is that North America is lame and deficient in passenger rail transportation compared to Europe and East Asia, and the comparison keeps getting worse.
- hueving 8y ago
  >There are more people in Europe Well duh. The key to making trains useful is having people focused in heavily populated areas. If the US were like Europe, some heavily built rail in the Midwest would cover the vast majority of the population. Look at this map to put in perspective how much more rail would be required to connect together the major population centers of the US. https://becovegan.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/europe-us-overlay-map.jpg https://becovegan.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/europe-us-over...
  - mkempe 8y ago
    That's not Europe. Learn geography and look at some actual maps.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    The flagged comment by mkempe has a point. Europe doesn't stop at Berlin and Vienna. Here's a better map of the European railway network: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1b/European_railway_map.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1b/European_rail...
    - hueving 8y ago
      Russia isn't Europe and that map is pointless because it's just showing some railways without ridership details. The US also has a massive rail network, it's just almost exclusively used for freight.
      - icebraining 8y ago
        Your map didn't show ridership either; the purpose of mine was just to show that the European railway is larger than what your map showed. And it certainly is used by passengers all across its length, from Faro to Moscow and beyond.
- peterwwillis 8y ago
  We have states as big as European countries with nothing but corn. The only people paying to cross that are people going across the coasts, which still takes three days by train compared to a day and a half or two days by car. Why would we pay for that?
  - pm24601 8y ago
    Amtrak long distance trains UNLIKE airplanes are used to connect cities in the middle to other cities in the middle. Amtraks trains from the west coast to Chicago sell the same seat 2x - 3x over the course of one journey. Most people are NOT going end to end. I have ridden the California Zephyr from California to Denver. I have see others get on (there are seat tickets) : * in Utah going to Iowa. * Nevada going further east in Nevada * etc.
- mercutio2 8y ago
  This is a pretty inflammatory way of saying, “Americans like cars and airplanes. They don’t like trains.” You’re only making the argument harder for Americans (like me!) who like trains by being dismissive of excellent path-dependent and population-dependent reasons why the US passenger train networks died out.
  - mkempe 8y ago
    Nope. I'm saying that Americans are unfortunately missing out on what is elsewhere a great, modern transportation system. If the federal government hadn't used massive war-driven budgets to replace rail with highways, and continued to massively subsidize highways, you'd be there, too.
    - peterwwillis 8y ago
      Yes, if we had not invested heavily in both highways and airports, we may have invested more in trains (there were other problems with the railroads at the time). But that was over 70 years ago. It's not an "excuse" to explain that things are the way they are, and that it makes no sense today to fund renewed railroad investment. There's a reason we're flush with self-driving car companies and not railroad companies.
      - mkempe 8y ago
        US government subsidies to airports and highways haven't stopped. They dwarf public subsidies to railroads.
ghaff 8y ago
Freight railroads do a lot more than bulk cargo. For example, they're how shipping containers get from west coast ports to the east coast. Rail freight is a fraction of the cost of the cost of trucking and has mostly replaced true long-haul trucking. I agree that long distance passenger rail mostly doesn't make a lot of financial sense.
pm24601 8y ago
Sure it makes sense to fund long-distance railroads! Even today, most passengers on Amtrak are NOT riding end-to-end. They are riding between Utah and Nebraska; Or between South Carolina and Vermont; Or Boston to Connecticut. On the California Zephyr - a coach seat is sold 2-3x times for different segments of the same journey.
- mercutio2 8y ago
  I’m a huge fan of passenger rail, and I have a soft spot in my heart for the cross country Amtrak trains, having ridden them frequently in my twenties. But I don’t think you offered evidence that it makes sense to fund Amtrak. Cross country trains in the US are a perennial loss maker, subsidized by under-investing in the profitable dense population corridors, where we could conceivably invest in high speed rail if there was political will to do so (there’s not, but that’s a separate issue). Replacing cross country Amtrak with comfortable buses would be faster, more reliable, cheaper, and more acccessible to the population that uses trains. Buses are just lower status in the USA, which I think is a pretty silly reason to keep subsidizing Amtrak’s cross country routes.
  - pm24601 8y ago
    > Cross country trains in the US are a perennial loss maker, subsidized by under-investing in the profitable dense population corridors, where we could conceivably invest in high speed rail if there was political will to do so (there’s not, but that’s a separate issue). How much money does the interstate highway system make? Yet we keep funding that for some reason. How much money does you local streets make ? And before you pull out the "completely different card" remember that both rail and highways serve the exact same societal need: Moving goods and humans from one place to another. We stick humans/goods in a box with wheels and roll them to their destination. Explain why the box rolling on asphalt should be subsidized but the box rolling on steel should not? > Replacing cross country Amtrak with comfortable buses would be faster, more reliable, cheaper, and more acccessible to the population that uses trains I don't believe you have ever taken a bus long distances. I have. Its like being stuck in an airplane. The long distance busses in Thailand are o.k. However you are still glued to your seat in a way that is not true for trains.

mkempe 8y ago

Indeed, I've travelled from NY to SF in both directions by road, rail, and air. The only experience that was much worse than my travels in Europe and Japan was by rail (namely Amtrak). There are more people in Europe, there is more land in Europe, etc. Stop with the fake excuses. Europeans enjoy all of it: cars, trains, and airplanes. The simple fact is that North America is lame and deficient in passenger rail transportation compared to Europe and East Asia, and the comparison keeps getting worse.

hueving 8y ago
>There are more people in Europe Well duh. The key to making trains useful is having people focused in heavily populated areas. If the US were like Europe, some heavily built rail in the Midwest would cover the vast majority of the population. Look at this map to put in perspective how much more rail would be required to connect together the major population centers of the US. https://becovegan.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/europe-us-overlay-map.jpg https://becovegan.files.wordpress.com/2014/09/europe-us-over...
- mkempe 8y ago
  That's not Europe. Learn geography and look at some actual maps.
- icebraining 8y ago
  The flagged comment by mkempe has a point. Europe doesn't stop at Berlin and Vienna. Here's a better map of the European railway network: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1b/European_railway_map.jpg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1b/European_rail...
  - hueving 8y ago
    Russia isn't Europe and that map is pointless because it's just showing some railways without ridership details. The US also has a massive rail network, it's just almost exclusively used for freight.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      Your map didn't show ridership either; the purpose of mine was just to show that the European railway is larger than what your map showed. And it certainly is used by passengers all across its length, from Faro to Moscow and beyond.
peterwwillis 8y ago
We have states as big as European countries with nothing but corn. The only people paying to cross that are people going across the coasts, which still takes three days by train compared to a day and a half or two days by car. Why would we pay for that?
- pm24601 8y ago
  Amtrak long distance trains UNLIKE airplanes are used to connect cities in the middle to other cities in the middle. Amtraks trains from the west coast to Chicago sell the same seat 2x - 3x over the course of one journey. Most people are NOT going end to end. I have ridden the California Zephyr from California to Denver. I have see others get on (there are seat tickets) : * in Utah going to Iowa. * Nevada going further east in Nevada * etc.
mercutio2 8y ago
This is a pretty inflammatory way of saying, “Americans like cars and airplanes. They don’t like trains.” You’re only making the argument harder for Americans (like me!) who like trains by being dismissive of excellent path-dependent and population-dependent reasons why the US passenger train networks died out.
- mkempe 8y ago
  Nope. I'm saying that Americans are unfortunately missing out on what is elsewhere a great, modern transportation system. If the federal government hadn't used massive war-driven budgets to replace rail with highways, and continued to massively subsidize highways, you'd be there, too.
  - peterwwillis 8y ago
    Yes, if we had not invested heavily in both highways and airports, we may have invested more in trains (there were other problems with the railroads at the time). But that was over 70 years ago. It's not an "excuse" to explain that things are the way they are, and that it makes no sense today to fund renewed railroad investment. There's a reason we're flush with self-driving car companies and not railroad companies.
    - mkempe 8y ago
      US government subsidies to airports and highways haven't stopped. They dwarf public subsidies to railroads.

ghaff 8y ago

Freight railroads do a lot more than bulk cargo. For example, they're how shipping containers get from west coast ports to the east coast. Rail freight is a fraction of the cost of the cost of trucking and has mostly replaced true long-haul trucking. I agree that long distance passenger rail mostly doesn't make a lot of financial sense.

pm24601 8y ago

Sure it makes sense to fund long-distance railroads! Even today, most passengers on Amtrak are NOT riding end-to-end. They are riding between Utah and Nebraska; Or between South Carolina and Vermont; Or Boston to Connecticut. On the California Zephyr - a coach seat is sold 2-3x times for different segments of the same journey.

mercutio2 8y ago
I’m a huge fan of passenger rail, and I have a soft spot in my heart for the cross country Amtrak trains, having ridden them frequently in my twenties. But I don’t think you offered evidence that it makes sense to fund Amtrak. Cross country trains in the US are a perennial loss maker, subsidized by under-investing in the profitable dense population corridors, where we could conceivably invest in high speed rail if there was political will to do so (there’s not, but that’s a separate issue). Replacing cross country Amtrak with comfortable buses would be faster, more reliable, cheaper, and more acccessible to the population that uses trains. Buses are just lower status in the USA, which I think is a pretty silly reason to keep subsidizing Amtrak’s cross country routes.
- pm24601 8y ago
  > Cross country trains in the US are a perennial loss maker, subsidized by under-investing in the profitable dense population corridors, where we could conceivably invest in high speed rail if there was political will to do so (there’s not, but that’s a separate issue). How much money does the interstate highway system make? Yet we keep funding that for some reason. How much money does you local streets make ? And before you pull out the "completely different card" remember that both rail and highways serve the exact same societal need: Moving goods and humans from one place to another. We stick humans/goods in a box with wheels and roll them to their destination. Explain why the box rolling on asphalt should be subsidized but the box rolling on steel should not? > Replacing cross country Amtrak with comfortable buses would be faster, more reliable, cheaper, and more acccessible to the population that uses trains I don't believe you have ever taken a bus long distances. I have. Its like being stuck in an airplane. The long distance busses in Thailand are o.k. However you are still glued to your seat in a way that is not true for trains.