The reason trains are deprioritized in the American travel schedule is that the rails are rightly used for freight instead. Even if you're trying to optimize f

The reason trains are deprioritized in the American travel schedule is that the rails are rightly used for freight instead. Even if you're trying to optimize for CO2 production, rails are barely better than air travel [1], and adding more passenger service would require a ton less freight service. That freight service would be pushed to trucks - already too high of a percentage of freight. [2] trucks are half the efficiency of trains per mile[3], and truck freight is already most of fuel usage[4]. If Europe converted their rails used for passenger service into freight only and everyone flew instead, we'd have solved the climate crisis. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/04/climate/trains-planes-carbon-footprint-pollution.html?smid=url-share https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/04/climate/trains-planes-car... [2] https://www.bts.gov/content/us-ton-miles-freight https://www.bts.gov/content/us-ton-miles-freight [3] https://railroads.dot.gov/sites/fra.dot.gov/files/fra_net/16332/1991_RAIL%20VS%20TRUCK%20FUEL%20EFFICIENCY%20-%20THE%20RELATIVE%20F%282%29.PDF https://railroads.dot.gov/sites/fra.dot.gov/files/fra_net/16... is the last authoritative study, but truck efficiency has greatly improved since then. [4] https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/freight-transportation https://climate.mit.edu/explainers/freight-transportation