4 ms·

Freight traffic dominates the utilization of the rail network in the US and is prioritized over other traffic. Freight trains travel slowly. This is why US pas

Freight traffic dominates the utilization of the rail network in the US and is prioritized over other traffic. Freight trains travel slowly. This is why US passenger train service is so poor compared to Europe. > The picture for freight is different. According to Panorama 2009 , 46 percent of EU-27 freight goes by highway while only 10 percent goes by rail, while in the U.S. 43 percent goes by rail and only 30 percent by road. (In both cases, nearly all of the rest is waterways and pipelines.) > So, it isn’t so much that Europe decided to move people by train rather than by automobile. It is more that Europe decided to use its railroads to move people while the United States decided to use them for freight. America moves almost six times as many ton-miles (or tonne-kilometers) of freight by rail as Europe, while both move about the same number of tonne-kilometers by road. While Europe moves about twice as many tkm of freight by waterway as the U.S., we move six times as much oil by pipeline. [6] - area of Continental US: 3.12 million sq mi [1] - area of Europe: 2.306 million sq mi [1] - rail network length, US: 141,808 mi [2] - rail network length, Europe: 157,667 mi [3] - goods carried, US: 1.558 trillion lg tn mi/yr (long ton-miles per year) (world rank: 1st) (2015 estimate) [4] - goods carried, "Europe": 0.32604 trillion lg tn mi/yr (long ton-miles per year) [1] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=continental+united+states+%7C+total+area+%2F+europe+%7C+total+area https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=continental+united+sta... [2] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=total+%7C+United+States+%7C+railway+length https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=total+%7C+United+State... [3] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=total+%7C+Europe+%7C+railway+length https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=total+%7C+Europe+%7C+r... [4] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=total+%7C+United+States+%7C+railway+length https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=total+%7C+United+State... [5] https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Europe+%7C+rail+transport+%7C+goods+carried+%7C+sum https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=Europe+%7C+rail+transp... [6] https://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=11847 https://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=11847

pacaro 8y ago
I also wonder how much population density has to do with this. The distances that freight is moved over in the US seem far greater than in Europe. The same applies to people, rail travel is much more available/popular in the denser parts of the US, but for the west coast (for example) the useful stops are fairly far from each other, Seattle and Portland are relatively close at about 170 miles, but then its another 600 miles to Sacramento, or 680 to San Francisco. Even with (I wish) high speed rail, those are long journeys. Of course you can have long train journeys in Europe too, but there really aren't any sizable destinations between Portland and Sacramento (sorry Salem, Eugene, Redding). I guess it feels like the distances involved in the US are more advantageous to freight, and in the EU are more advantageous to passengers
ant6n 8y ago
I'd argue the main difference is that the infrastructure in the US is private, while it's publicly owned in Europe. This allows some amount of subsidy towards the infrastructure, like is done for highways, allowing passenger trains to exist. Since then railroads have to be completely self-supporting in the US, they focus on how they can achieve the highest productivity: giant, slow trains on shoddy track. It also means the infrastructures are competing with one another, so there are redundant, shoddy, competing rail networks, rather than a network for slow and heavy freight trains, and a network for fast and light passenger trains.

pacaro 8y ago

I also wonder how much population density has to do with this. The distances that freight is moved over in the US seem far greater than in Europe. The same applies to people, rail travel is much more available/popular in the denser parts of the US, but for the west coast (for example) the useful stops are fairly far from each other, Seattle and Portland are relatively close at about 170 miles, but then its another 600 miles to Sacramento, or 680 to San Francisco. Even with (I wish) high speed rail, those are long journeys. Of course you can have long train journeys in Europe too, but there really aren't any sizable destinations between Portland and Sacramento (sorry Salem, Eugene, Redding). I guess it feels like the distances involved in the US are more advantageous to freight, and in the EU are more advantageous to passengers

ant6n 8y ago

I'd argue the main difference is that the infrastructure in the US is private, while it's publicly owned in Europe. This allows some amount of subsidy towards the infrastructure, like is done for highways, allowing passenger trains to exist. Since then railroads have to be completely self-supporting in the US, they focus on how they can achieve the highest productivity: giant, slow trains on shoddy track. It also means the infrastructures are competing with one another, so there are redundant, shoddy, competing rail networks, rather than a network for slow and heavy freight trains, and a network for fast and light passenger trains.