A lot of the United States is that low density area with a drive of an hour or two to the next municipality with a population of 5000 or more.
It isn't going to be practical to run a rail out to most of those places with anything resembling a regular schedule.
The difference is that in Norway the distance between an area with sparse population and a city with a few thousand people is much smaller. It can make sense to run trains to all the cities in Norway that have a population of more than 5000 people - that gets you 100 cities (looking at it, a lot of them are impractical in terms of "you will need to take a ferry or fly"), but we've still got 100 cities there.
The 100th largest municipality in Norway with a population of 5000 would be the 20th largest city in Montana. The 100th largest municipality in Montana has a population of 237.
The population portion may be accurate... and that can be solved by fixing New York, Chicago, Dallas, and Los Angeles.
Once you go beyond those metro areas trying to provide regular public transportation of any sort becomes impractical. If one sticks to the eastern seaboard, ok - it might be doable. Trying to do regular and reliable public transportation to the small towns comparable to the sizes served in Norway becomes difficult west of the Appalachian mountains.
The point was exclusively that you don't need high density to be able to serve an area with rail. You need a route that sufficient number of people will take, sure. But you'll often find stations nearly in the middle of nowhere, because adding a minimal stop on a regional route even when the density is really low is a means of making even marginal routes between small towns viable.
And that is the only argument I've made: That stations in low density areas can also be viable (incidentally proven by the fact that Montana has train stations, ironically along a route that is ridiculously low density mainly serving places outside the state). Not that every little rural place has a viable route.
> The 100th largest municipality in Norway with a population of 5000 would be the 20th largest city in Montana. The 100th largest municipality in Montana has a population of 237.
So don't even consider covering anywhere but the 2-5 most viable bits of Montana (e.g. Billings to Missoula via Bozeman and Helena or Butte, following the existing roads; EDIT: Incidentally there are already rail lines used for freight on this route and connecting to Spokane, WA, and to both Wyoming and North Dakota), or just ignore all of Montana.
(EDIT2: Project to bring Amtrak back to Southern Montana [1])
You can ignore all of Montana entirely and still vastly improve US public transport, because covering every rural place is not something I've ever (here or in any thread anywhere) argued for.
Again, the only thing I've argued for is that stations in low density areas can be viable. None of you're arguments have addressed that.
> Trying to do regular and reliable public transportation to the small towns comparable to the sizes served in Norway becomes difficult west of the Appalachian mountains.
So don't do that. Not argued for it at any point.
[1] https://www.route-fifty.com/infrastructure/2022/11/rural-cor... "He said restoring an old Amtrak route would also link the state’s major urban centers – Billings, Bozeman, Helena and Missoula – while giving more options to rural communities." ... "BNSF, the freight railroad that owns the tracks over which the new service would pass, is on the rail authority’s board. "
Yes, it's not a solution for everywhere. It's not a solution for everywhere in Norway either. But the point was not that. The point was that contrary to the comment I replied to, it is perfectly viable to serve areas that are quite low density. When you consider the low density areas in Norway that are served by trains, the proportion of the US population that lives in lower density regions is tiny.