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Dear Europeans and East Asians: to paraphrase Douglas Adams, America is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I

by wyclif 11y ago

Dear Europeans and East Asians: to paraphrase Douglas Adams, America is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to an American. I've been to Japan and been a passenger on the Shinkansen, and as the article says, I wept. I'm also well aware of the disconcerting contrast with the totally dysfunctional Amtrak—I've taken the Silver Star from NY to DC many times. I tell my foreign friends the reason why the most technologically advanced country in the world has a third-world, Soviet-era train system is because Amtrak labour is expensive and incompetent, our government is so deeply in debt that they haven't invested enough in infrastructure for us to have a modern train system, and public transportation is a political football in the US Congress. After all, $117 billion USD isn't chump change. And if we weren't spending $664.84 billion per year on the DOD and military, we'd easily have enough for up to date trains. [1] Also not helping trains is the fact that more than any other country on Earth, Americans love cars. Not a little. A lot. This doesn't mean we won't have great trains someday. I hope that day is coming soon, but currently trains don't scale well in the USA. [1] US military budget for the 2011 fiscal year.

yitchelle 11y ago
> Also not helping trains is the fact that more than any other country on Earth, Americans love cars. Not a little. A lot. Germany -> Car loving country with a highly efficient railway system, and a well serviced road system as well. So it should be achievable.
- wyclif 11y ago
  I didn't say cars are the only reason. They're just one reason among many.
- fla 11y ago
  More than the love of cars, I think one other important factor is that US cities have been built and developed around car-first traffic for the last 80? years. Which makes it much more optimal to drive around. Now if you consider the economical ecosystem that was built around the road traffic, it's no suprise that the train network is having a hard time growing up.
- Implicated 11y ago
  Land Size: Germany | 137,847 mi^2 (square miles) United States | 3,719,000 mi^2 (square miles) Paved Roads: Germany | 400,784 mi United States | 2,674,830 miles Not sure that's a fair comparison. [1] https://www.cia.gov/Library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2085.html https://www.cia.gov/Library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
  - tonyedgecombe 11y ago
    The population is far from evenly distributed across that larger area.
    - falcolas 11y ago
      True, but it tends to be concentrated at the four corners. The northeast gets Boston and NY, The southeast gets Miami and Atlanta, Then there's Seattle, California, etc. And if you don't live anywhere near these (a good portion of the population does not), or need to move between them, that means you have a long drive. I live in Montana (tangentially - about the same size as Germany), and if I want to get to the closest population center, I can either ride the bus (yeah, no) or drive. The closest train station is across the state from where I am, and takes 4 hours longer than the drive (or bus) would (not including transit time to the station.
      - yitchelle 11y ago
        Not knowing much about Montana, I looked it on wikipedia and found the following snippet. "Montana is ranked 4th in size, but 44th in population and 48th in population density of the 50 United States." Population density is 2.65 per sq km. Man, that is very sparse. Remind me of outback Australia where traveling distances were measured in "number of beers" drank.
- lgbr 11y ago
  > Germany -> Car loving country with a highly efficient railway system, and a well serviced road system as well. So it should be achievable. Germany has a highly efficient railway system and the country is so small that I can cross the entire country in a day, and still, I take the car everywhere I go. I think what some people miss is this: Trains are just worse. They're slow, not because they don't have a high top speed, but they have to stop so much that their average speed is just worse than a car's. I think there's a couple city pairs (Berlin <-> Frankfurt) where if I was racing a train I would lose by some small margin to one of the non-stop trains, but not by much, and this would only be a true win if on my trip I was going from one city center to another city center, which I'm never doing. They're still really expensive. Air travel around Germany is always cheaper, and so is the cost of fuel for most cars. You can sometimes find a discount on the train, but those travel at pretty inconvenient times and are quite rare anymore. They leave only so often. So unlike a car, I can't just set off whenever is convenient for me. I have to find a train that leaves when I want and make sure I get to it on time. So if you live in Frankfurt and want to go visit family outside of Munich for the weekend, leaving after work at 18:00 on a Friday you're going to end up sleeping in a train station in Bavaria overnight as opposed to a car which can continue driving after 12:00 unlike a rural train. And they never get where I want. For half of the places I regularly travel, when I get there, I need to have someone pick me up with a car or I need to rent a car. There just are no other choices. As densely populated as this country is, it's just still really difficult to get to a huge portion of the country with public transit. I really find it no wonder the US does not have a decent passenger train system. Every single one of these problems is hugely exacerbated by its sparse population to the point where passenger trains just aren't feasible.
  - TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago
    Is there anywhere in the world where the train system is 'really good' for a majority of people? Trains need tracks and if you don't live near the tracks and need to go where the tracks go the train isn't much use to you. So it follows that the US doesn't have a 'good' passenger train system because there is not such thing.
    - paganel 11y ago
coldtea 11y ago
>Dear Europeans and East Asians: to paraphrase Douglas Adams, America is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to an American. I've drove coast-to-coast like 10 times. It's bit but not that big when you compare it to East Asia (except if you mean "Japan" by that). The Trans-Siberian railway is 5,500 miles -- for comparison Chicago to LA is less than half that. Heck, Ukraine to Portugal is the same distance as coast to coast US. [EDIT] Let's put it this way: both China AND Russia, each by itself, is like 30% larger than the US.
tjradcliffe 11y ago
False. China has high-speed trains that travel around 1000 km. China is also big. Really big. Also pretty poor. But it manages despite its ridiculous dictatorship to get a modicum of useful stuff done. Stuff that the US--uniquely in the democratic, developed, world--is unable to do. For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China So the claim that "trains don't scale well in the USA" is false. Trains scale just fine to thousands of kilometres. The distance from Bejing to Hong Kong, which has a rail line capable of more than 300 kph (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rail_map_of_China.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rail_map_of_China.svg) is just shy of 2000 km as the crow flies, which is more than the distance from NYC to Chicago and a bit less than the distance from NYC to Dallas. And pointing out that LA is more distant from NYC than that is utterly, completely and totally irrelevant. The distance from NYC to LA has absolutely nothing to do with the inability of Americans to build a high speed rail link between various Eastern and Southern cities, and there is zero plausibility to any claim that NYC and Chicago (or Dallas) aren't commerical hubs of comparable importance to the US as Bejing and Hong Kong are to China. So we can put that false claim to bed now, and never muddy the discussion with it again. The more plausible reason is the other one you cite, at least by implication: the American economic and political system, uniquely amongst developed democracies, is unable to muster sufficient collective resources in the form of public or private investment to enable creators to build a fairly straightforward rail network that would serve American economic needs. The US is not "the most technologically advanced coutry in the world". It is two countries, one of which is technologically advanced, the other of which is backward in almost every respect (and kept that way by policies set by the first.) Until Americans figure out how to deal with their unique social and political deficits and inabilities they will continue to suffer under stub-standard conditions in almost every respect. They will continue to die earlier, live with higher crime rates, lousy railways, and dramatically lower economic efficiency than that enjoyed by citizens of almost any other advanced nation. Canada also sucks with respect to passenger rail, and we are generally far better than Americans at solving our collective problems, so there may be more to it than that, but clearly size alone is not the issue, or China wouldn't have the amazing high speed rail network it does.
- cactusface 11y ago
felipeerias 11y ago
Yes, the US is big, but a large part of its population is heavily concentrated. Trans-continental high-speed trains would be a waste, but better connections on very densely populated areas would be a great idea. And the difference is not really that stark as you make it sound. Europe can be big too. While only 8 US states have a higher population density than France, there are 35 US states with a higher population density than Sweden. https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=List_of_U.S._states_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=List_of_U.S._states_by_popul... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...
- ctolsen 11y ago
  Sweden isn't very densely populated.
TillE 11y ago
Again, the point that always needs to be made in these discussions: America's trains are lousy even in dense areas where they're heavily used. Case in point, the LIRR.
- wyclif 11y ago
  But I grant that point, and so does the article. The problem is that most of the geography is not dense. Here's a classic and recent example from someone who commutes on Amtrak out of NYC, the most dense metro region in the USA: https://twitter.com/greg_thornbury/status/610132981571801089 https://twitter.com/greg_thornbury/status/610132981571801089
- tormeh 11y ago
  Would it help if Amtrak didn't have to service anything else than the west and east coast? Wouldn't service get better if you cut out the areas that are uneconomical to service?
makeitsuckless 11y ago
That's just condescending exceptionalism. The vast majority of trains in Europe cover short distances in densely populated urban areas of which the US has plenty. Also, I don't buy the "Americans love cars" argument. Americans have an oddly obsessive relationship with owning cars, but it's definitely not "love". Wester Europeans are in general far more passionate and discerning about cars.
- wyclif 11y ago
  First, you completely misunderstood my comment. American exceptionalism is the suggestion that the USA is better than other developed countries because it is intrinsically unique. But that's not what I said at all; in fact, I said the opposite: our transportation system is not only retrograde, but worse than in other countries. I'm also going to have to say "nope" to your auto comment as well. Western Europeans may have more cars per person, but that's not the same thing as love. We're the country of Tesla Motors and Google self-driving cars. That was what my "not a little, a lot" jibe was about—we are all about ratings, blue books, discernment, reviews, specs, mechanics, all of that. There's a reason the song "Fun, Fun, Fun" by the Beach Boys ("And she'll have fun, fun, fun / Till her daddy takes the T-bird away") is such a cultural touchstone in the States.
  - makeitsuckless 11y ago
    Tesla and Google's self driving cars are recent development. In Europe, there is a much bigger culture around car engineering, innovation, racing etcetera. There's a reason why, unlike in the US, millions are poured into all forms of autosports. It's nothing abnormal for an ordinary suburban housewife to prefer a "sporting" car with manual gearshift. Brands like Ferrari, Aston Martin, Porsche etcetera exist in Europe because cars are seen as much more than just vehicles. The American obsession with cars is different, but there doesn't seem to be an awful lot of "love" involved in the American car culture, at least not since the 50s.
orf 11y ago
> to paraphrase Douglas Adams, America is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. No, Australia is mind bogglingly big. America is big-ish.
- wyclif 11y ago
  And how is Australia's continental train service, then?
  - orf 11y ago
    Acceptable (daily/twice daily trains between major cities), however I was wrong on my first point[1]. I guess the lack of people and the huge, impossibly large landscapes makes it seem larger than it is. 1. http://www.aboutaustralia.com/australia-size-compared-to-usa/ http://www.aboutaustralia.com/australia-size-compared-to-usa...
- profsnuggles 11y ago
  I'm confused by which metric Australia is bigger then America? Since America is like 25% larger in landmass and has more people in some of its larger states than the entire population of Australia.
  - orf 11y ago
    > has more people in some of its larger states than the entire population of Australia Which makes Australia seem really really really big.
    - codesushi42 11y ago
      Not when a mere fraction of it is actually livable. Approximately 10% of Australia is habitable, compared to 40% of the US. http://37propertygroup.com.au/real-estate/population-density/ http://37propertygroup.com.au/real-estate/population-density... The US percentage would no doubt be higher without Alaska.
- 11y ago
pouetpouet 11y ago
The North-East is as dense as France. The mid-atlantic is denser than France, slighty less than Germany. And yet those regions severely lack in the train department. The size of the USA as a whole is irrelevant. 2000 mile train rides are not the point. Regional corridors are.
dragop 11y ago
The distance between New York and Washington DC is about 225 miles and takes just over 4 hours by car. Assuming a dedicated high speed rail line based on highway distances, at the best TGV speeds[1] (173mph, includes start and stop, not just high speed running) that would take approximately 1 hour 20 minutes. [1] http://www.railwaygazette.com/fileadmin/user_upload/railwaygazette.com/PDF/RailwayGazetteWorldSpeedSurvey2007.pdf http://www.railwaygazette.com/fileadmin/user_upload/railwayg...
mozumder 11y ago
> Also not helping trains is the fact that more than any other country on Earth, Americans love cars. Not a little. A lot. Americans don't love cars. SOME Americans are forced to buy cars because of the infrastructure they live under, but they don't love them. Most people prefer to go by rail if they can. Millennials especially.
- wyclif 11y ago
  Sorry, but you're wrong. Americans love cars. Adore them, in fact. Everything about them. The sound, the paint, the polish, the leather, the tires. Everything.
  - mozumder 11y ago
    OK, but Americans hate cars. Everything about them. The sound, the paint, the polish, the leather, the tires. Everything. But especially the costs. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/why-dont-young-americans-buy-cars/255001/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/why-dont... Since Americans hate cars so much, we have to build an economy without them. Trains are a good way to do that.

by wyclif 11y ago

yitchelle 11y ago

> Also not helping trains is the fact that more than any other country on Earth, Americans love cars. Not a little. A lot. Germany -> Car loving country with a highly efficient railway system, and a well serviced road system as well. So it should be achievable.

wyclif 11y ago
I didn't say cars are the only reason. They're just one reason among many.
fla 11y ago
More than the love of cars, I think one other important factor is that US cities have been built and developed around car-first traffic for the last 80? years. Which makes it much more optimal to drive around. Now if you consider the economical ecosystem that was built around the road traffic, it's no suprise that the train network is having a hard time growing up.
Implicated 11y ago
Land Size: Germany | 137,847 mi^2 (square miles) United States | 3,719,000 mi^2 (square miles) Paved Roads: Germany | 400,784 mi United States | 2,674,830 miles Not sure that's a fair comparison. [1] https://www.cia.gov/Library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2085.html https://www.cia.gov/Library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
- tonyedgecombe 11y ago
  The population is far from evenly distributed across that larger area.
  - falcolas 11y ago
    True, but it tends to be concentrated at the four corners. The northeast gets Boston and NY, The southeast gets Miami and Atlanta, Then there's Seattle, California, etc. And if you don't live anywhere near these (a good portion of the population does not), or need to move between them, that means you have a long drive. I live in Montana (tangentially - about the same size as Germany), and if I want to get to the closest population center, I can either ride the bus (yeah, no) or drive. The closest train station is across the state from where I am, and takes 4 hours longer than the drive (or bus) would (not including transit time to the station.
    - yitchelle 11y ago
      Not knowing much about Montana, I looked it on wikipedia and found the following snippet. "Montana is ranked 4th in size, but 44th in population and 48th in population density of the 50 United States." Population density is 2.65 per sq km. Man, that is very sparse. Remind me of outback Australia where traveling distances were measured in "number of beers" drank.
lgbr 11y ago
> Germany -> Car loving country with a highly efficient railway system, and a well serviced road system as well. So it should be achievable. Germany has a highly efficient railway system and the country is so small that I can cross the entire country in a day, and still, I take the car everywhere I go. I think what some people miss is this: Trains are just worse. They're slow, not because they don't have a high top speed, but they have to stop so much that their average speed is just worse than a car's. I think there's a couple city pairs (Berlin <-> Frankfurt) where if I was racing a train I would lose by some small margin to one of the non-stop trains, but not by much, and this would only be a true win if on my trip I was going from one city center to another city center, which I'm never doing. They're still really expensive. Air travel around Germany is always cheaper, and so is the cost of fuel for most cars. You can sometimes find a discount on the train, but those travel at pretty inconvenient times and are quite rare anymore. They leave only so often. So unlike a car, I can't just set off whenever is convenient for me. I have to find a train that leaves when I want and make sure I get to it on time. So if you live in Frankfurt and want to go visit family outside of Munich for the weekend, leaving after work at 18:00 on a Friday you're going to end up sleeping in a train station in Bavaria overnight as opposed to a car which can continue driving after 12:00 unlike a rural train. And they never get where I want. For half of the places I regularly travel, when I get there, I need to have someone pick me up with a car or I need to rent a car. There just are no other choices. As densely populated as this country is, it's just still really difficult to get to a huge portion of the country with public transit. I really find it no wonder the US does not have a decent passenger train system. Every single one of these problems is hugely exacerbated by its sparse population to the point where passenger trains just aren't feasible.
- TheSpiceIsLife 11y ago
  Is there anywhere in the world where the train system is 'really good' for a majority of people? Trains need tracks and if you don't live near the tracks and need to go where the tracks go the train isn't much use to you. So it follows that the US doesn't have a 'good' passenger train system because there is not such thing.
  - paganel 11y ago

coldtea 11y ago

>Dear Europeans and East Asians: to paraphrase Douglas Adams, America is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist, but that's just peanuts to an American. I've drove coast-to-coast like 10 times. It's bit but not that big when you compare it to East Asia (except if you mean "Japan" by that). The Trans-Siberian railway is 5,500 miles -- for comparison Chicago to LA is less than half that. Heck, Ukraine to Portugal is the same distance as coast to coast US. [EDIT] Let's put it this way: both China AND Russia, each by itself, is like 30% larger than the US.

tjradcliffe 11y ago

False. China has high-speed trains that travel around 1000 km. China is also big. Really big. Also pretty poor. But it manages despite its ridiculous dictatorship to get a modicum of useful stuff done. Stuff that the US--uniquely in the democratic, developed, world--is unable to do. For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China So the claim that "trains don't scale well in the USA" is false. Trains scale just fine to thousands of kilometres. The distance from Bejing to Hong Kong, which has a rail line capable of more than 300 kph (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rail_map_of_China.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rail_map_of_China.svg) is just shy of 2000 km as the crow flies, which is more than the distance from NYC to Chicago and a bit less than the distance from NYC to Dallas. And pointing out that LA is more distant from NYC than that is utterly, completely and totally irrelevant. The distance from NYC to LA has absolutely nothing to do with the inability of Americans to build a high speed rail link between various Eastern and Southern cities, and there is zero plausibility to any claim that NYC and Chicago (or Dallas) aren't commerical hubs of comparable importance to the US as Bejing and Hong Kong are to China. So we can put that false claim to bed now, and never muddy the discussion with it again. The more plausible reason is the other one you cite, at least by implication: the American economic and political system, uniquely amongst developed democracies, is unable to muster sufficient collective resources in the form of public or private investment to enable creators to build a fairly straightforward rail network that would serve American economic needs. The US is not "the most technologically advanced coutry in the world". It is two countries, one of which is technologically advanced, the other of which is backward in almost every respect (and kept that way by policies set by the first.) Until Americans figure out how to deal with their unique social and political deficits and inabilities they will continue to suffer under stub-standard conditions in almost every respect. They will continue to die earlier, live with higher crime rates, lousy railways, and dramatically lower economic efficiency than that enjoyed by citizens of almost any other advanced nation. Canada also sucks with respect to passenger rail, and we are generally far better than Americans at solving our collective problems, so there may be more to it than that, but clearly size alone is not the issue, or China wouldn't have the amazing high speed rail network it does.

cactusface 11y ago

felipeerias 11y ago

Yes, the US is big, but a large part of its population is heavily concentrated. Trans-continental high-speed trains would be a waste, but better connections on very densely populated areas would be a great idea. And the difference is not really that stark as you make it sound. Europe can be big too. While only 8 US states have a higher population density than France, there are 35 US states with a higher population density than Sweden. https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=List_of_U.S._states_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=List_of_U.S._states_by_popul... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_d...

ctolsen 11y ago
Sweden isn't very densely populated.

TillE 11y ago

Again, the point that always needs to be made in these discussions: America's trains are lousy even in dense areas where they're heavily used. Case in point, the LIRR.

wyclif 11y ago
But I grant that point, and so does the article. The problem is that most of the geography is not dense. Here's a classic and recent example from someone who commutes on Amtrak out of NYC, the most dense metro region in the USA: https://twitter.com/greg_thornbury/status/610132981571801089 https://twitter.com/greg_thornbury/status/610132981571801089
tormeh 11y ago
Would it help if Amtrak didn't have to service anything else than the west and east coast? Wouldn't service get better if you cut out the areas that are uneconomical to service?

makeitsuckless 11y ago

That's just condescending exceptionalism. The vast majority of trains in Europe cover short distances in densely populated urban areas of which the US has plenty. Also, I don't buy the "Americans love cars" argument. Americans have an oddly obsessive relationship with owning cars, but it's definitely not "love". Wester Europeans are in general far more passionate and discerning about cars.

wyclif 11y ago
First, you completely misunderstood my comment. American exceptionalism is the suggestion that the USA is better than other developed countries because it is intrinsically unique. But that's not what I said at all; in fact, I said the opposite: our transportation system is not only retrograde, but worse than in other countries. I'm also going to have to say "nope" to your auto comment as well. Western Europeans may have more cars per person, but that's not the same thing as love. We're the country of Tesla Motors and Google self-driving cars. That was what my "not a little, a lot" jibe was about—we are all about ratings, blue books, discernment, reviews, specs, mechanics, all of that. There's a reason the song "Fun, Fun, Fun" by the Beach Boys ("And she'll have fun, fun, fun / Till her daddy takes the T-bird away") is such a cultural touchstone in the States.
- makeitsuckless 11y ago
  Tesla and Google's self driving cars are recent development. In Europe, there is a much bigger culture around car engineering, innovation, racing etcetera. There's a reason why, unlike in the US, millions are poured into all forms of autosports. It's nothing abnormal for an ordinary suburban housewife to prefer a "sporting" car with manual gearshift. Brands like Ferrari, Aston Martin, Porsche etcetera exist in Europe because cars are seen as much more than just vehicles. The American obsession with cars is different, but there doesn't seem to be an awful lot of "love" involved in the American car culture, at least not since the 50s.

orf 11y ago

> to paraphrase Douglas Adams, America is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. No, Australia is mind bogglingly big. America is big-ish.

wyclif 11y ago
And how is Australia's continental train service, then?
- orf 11y ago
  Acceptable (daily/twice daily trains between major cities), however I was wrong on my first point[1]. I guess the lack of people and the huge, impossibly large landscapes makes it seem larger than it is. 1. http://www.aboutaustralia.com/australia-size-compared-to-usa/ http://www.aboutaustralia.com/australia-size-compared-to-usa...
profsnuggles 11y ago
I'm confused by which metric Australia is bigger then America? Since America is like 25% larger in landmass and has more people in some of its larger states than the entire population of Australia.
- orf 11y ago
  > has more people in some of its larger states than the entire population of Australia Which makes Australia seem really really really big.
  - codesushi42 11y ago
    Not when a mere fraction of it is actually livable. Approximately 10% of Australia is habitable, compared to 40% of the US. http://37propertygroup.com.au/real-estate/population-density/ http://37propertygroup.com.au/real-estate/population-density... The US percentage would no doubt be higher without Alaska.
11y ago

pouetpouet 11y ago

The North-East is as dense as France. The mid-atlantic is denser than France, slighty less than Germany. And yet those regions severely lack in the train department. The size of the USA as a whole is irrelevant. 2000 mile train rides are not the point. Regional corridors are.

dragop 11y ago

The distance between New York and Washington DC is about 225 miles and takes just over 4 hours by car. Assuming a dedicated high speed rail line based on highway distances, at the best TGV speeds[1] (173mph, includes start and stop, not just high speed running) that would take approximately 1 hour 20 minutes. [1] http://www.railwaygazette.com/fileadmin/user_upload/railwaygazette.com/PDF/RailwayGazetteWorldSpeedSurvey2007.pdf http://www.railwaygazette.com/fileadmin/user_upload/railwayg...

mozumder 11y ago

> Also not helping trains is the fact that more than any other country on Earth, Americans love cars. Not a little. A lot. Americans don't love cars. SOME Americans are forced to buy cars because of the infrastructure they live under, but they don't love them. Most people prefer to go by rail if they can. Millennials especially.

wyclif 11y ago
Sorry, but you're wrong. Americans love cars. Adore them, in fact. Everything about them. The sound, the paint, the polish, the leather, the tires. Everything.
- mozumder 11y ago
  OK, but Americans hate cars. Everything about them. The sound, the paint, the polish, the leather, the tires. Everything. But especially the costs. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/why-dont-young-americans-buy-cars/255001/ http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/why-dont... Since Americans hate cars so much, we have to build an economy without them. Trains are a good way to do that.