Given the size of our country, I'm not at all sure we made the wrong tradeoff here. Being able to cheaply ship goods from coast to coast seems far more valuable than having high speed passenger trains that "only" take a day or two to make that same trip.
Certainly, there are some corridors where we ought to to better. DC-Boston and LA-SF, for example, would probably benefit greatly from high-speed rail. But I don't think the idea of ubiquitous passenger trains is really a good one for us, much as I might like to see it.
Also I can think of a few practical reasons why Europe might have less developed long distance freight rail off the top of my head. Not least the fact that most of Europe is a lot better connected by sea than opposite coasts of the US (especially before the Panama canal was built).
If anything it sounds like the freight rail is the only reason you have any passenger rail at all.
Which, plainly, was the original point.
Why can't we have both?
By the way 40% of US rail freight traffic by weight is coal, which is nothing to be proud of. If you erase the fact that USA is still a massive coal consumer, it starts to look like Europe moves as much freight as America does.
It is "justified" if the American configuration (cars & trucks carry people, trains carry goods) uses less energy than the European one (cars & trucks carry goods, trains carry people), which I suspect it does when you do an apples-to-apples comparison and leave out metropolitan rail systems, where people-vs-freight tradeoffs don't apply.
> By the way 40% of US rail freight traffic by weight is coal, which is nothing to be proud of. If you erase the fact that USA is still a massive coal consumer, it starts to look like Europe moves as much freight as America does.
Again, to do a fair comparison you have to subtract coal from European transport systems.
Not sure what you're getting at with ignoring metro rail systems.