Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

Meanwhile in America we have a world class freight system between America, Canada, and Mexico that’s unrivaled anywhere else in the world. Europe uses trucking which is less environmentally friendly[1] than rail. The United States also runs the largest rail system in the world[2] vs any country (and the combined EU[3]).

Europe is leading the world in electrification and they are likely getting that power from greener energies. The US’s diesel-electrics are nasty but hopefully they will become fully electric in the long term or offset in the short term by improving passenger car pollution and building more renewable energy sources.

China’s energy sources are very nasty pollution wise and impact the environment in bad ways (hydro power, Three Gorges dam).[4]

Anyone know the pollution difference from using coal to power a train or using an ICE train?

I’m all for passenger trains and would love high speed rail but I also enjoy a healthy debate with some sources.

[1]https://theconversation.com/rail-travel-is-cleaner-than-driv...

[2]https://www.railway-technology.com/features/featurethe-world...

[3]https://www.railjournal.com/regions/europe/european-passenge...

[4] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_China

> world class freight system

Word. I once stood on a bridge counting the cargo cars in a train passing beneath us, and gave up at 88 or so because I was pointlessly delaying a friend ...

They don't look like much, but they work like that quip: "Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes".

Keep telling yourself that…

Here in Europe, we actually use mostly trains. Trucking is for the smaller deliveries, like some five bathtubs from Sweden to Germany.

And we use trains for humans too.

The reason your trains are so long is because they need to go so far.

While around here, we use more local products. As we are still actually separate countries, not one big lowest common denominator culture mush. ;)

That is not the case at all[1]. I appreciate the thought out post and tone /sarcasm.

For further reading.[2]

> 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.

[1] https://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=11847

[2] https://www.freightwaves.com/news/railroad/us-and-european-f...

Is there a need to boast about your own perceived superiority and is that an attractive trait?

Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

This is a horrible attitude to have. You're telling them that rather than push their country to be the best it can be, they should accept it for what it is and move if they don't like it? That's not what America is about my friend.

China, due to the nature of the country, has options at it's disposal that the US does not. Norway, the socialist paradise (where I live) , also does not have high speed rail BTW.

Yet "socialist" leaning countries like Spain, Germany, France, and Sweden do have high speed rail.

Sure, China's cheaper labor makes it easier for them to build out HSR quickly and affordably, but your implication that you need to be an authoritarian country for HSR to be feasible isn't accurate.

The lack of HSR in the US is due to several reasons. High construction costs, the fact that many cities are very spread out and cheaply served by domestic flights, and my earlier comment about NIMBYs blocking construction because they don't want it running through their farms.

I'm not a fan of regimes that concentrate religious minorities in camps, enforce an ideological form of social engineering through "social credit", harvest organs on an industrial scale, or disappear people for having views out of step with dear leader Winnie the Pooh. Rather, I feel a profound sense of disappointment at the sight of an America that used to move mountains and earth to improve the human condition, and, at a time of historically unprecedented aggregate wealth, productivity, and technological advancement, finds itself unable or unwilling to commit itself to the sorts of enterprises that less fortunate nations have no problem undertaking.

This is partially because the improvements you mention come from the private sector while the things that you miss usually done by government (at the very least the framework). US has a long history of crony capitalism or corporatism and as a result no real general public health care, public transportation and so on. It also does not help that different states have different regulations in many cases.

I mean yeah, the day after you get HSR, communist government materialises out thin air!