Huh. Anecdotally I’ve heard from friends who took a scenic train from San Francisco to Denver and San Francisco to Seattle and found it a pleasant experience.

Huh. Anecdotally I’ve heard from friends who took a scenic train from San Francisco to Denver and San Francisco to Seattle and found it a pleasant experience. I think this was specifically a train for fun and scenery. The destination is part of the point too but this wasn’t marketed or intended as transportation as a means of getting from point a to b. In short I’m sure your experience is a reliable indicator of at least some of the state of train travel in the us. But it can be better than this, as a niche industry.