Well the US is the 3rd largest country in the world, with the 3rd largest population, and in terms of rail tonne-km is also 3rd.
I.e. it sits where you'd expect, per sq km and per capita.
Passenger wise though it's 10th.
So if the US government would wanted to build out cross country passenger rail they would either have to build new tracks, or use eminent domain to take back control of the existing tracks. Both options would be very expensive and wildly unpopular.
For example, by limiting the maximum length of a freight train.
Then relatively minor subsidies (e.g. additional passing loops) could be used to improve reliability.
Most of the European railway companies have been privatized and there are companies that run the rail network and companies that run the train. Subsidies are not a thing in many of the European countries
The US population is fairly concentrated around the 'edges'. About 40% of the population lives in a coastal county:
* https://ecowatch.noaa.gov/thematic/coastal-population
And two-thirds of the population with-in 100 miles (160 km) of the border:
It's not like 1905 when you could just walk from your home in Smalltown USA to the local train station, buy a ticket, and get a ride to the nearest city, and get out and walk from that station to interesting places.
Any train trip, even if you look only at the eastern states, is likely to require a car ride on one or both ends to get to/from your source/destination to/from the station. If you have to drive an hour just to get to a train station, and another hour to get from the destination station to your final station, it's probably faster and easier and much cheaper to just drive the whole way. Don't forget dealing with parking, car rental, etc.; you'd probably have to take taxis, and those are quite expensive.
The fundamental problem here is density. America doesn't have it any more.
(It's a figurative example I'm not sure there's a train from Seattle to SF)
I'm just saying, this is such a rare use case that it's not as high of a priority as expanding the roads that 80% or more of the residents in a city use daily. Whereas for freight it makes a ton of sense.
(fun fact, there actually is a train route there!)
Even for flights which take 45 minutes in the air, I’d never expect to get to the airport, through security, through all the boarding and unboarding nonsense, and from the destination airport to where I was actually going, in 3 hours.
IIRC last time I was in Seattle airport, after I got off the plane (which was late, of course), I spent half an hour just walking through airport and to the rather inconveniently located light rail. Everything involving flying takes forever.
As some who used to travel for meetings quite a lot to a city 3 hours away by high speed rail, it really isn't. Once you take into account that you can show up for your train 5 mins before it leaves, plus the fact that the train station is almost always much closer to where you want to be, the difference in time between trains and planes pretty much disappears for shorter trips.
Plus the train is just so much nicer and more comfortable. It's quieter. Your seats are much bigger and have more legroom than even the nicest business class seats. You can get up and walk around if you want. You often have a restaurant car where you can sit and grab a drink or something to eat. Train travel is just so much more relaxing compared to flying.
You just can't do that in the US, outside some very select situations (like going from somewhere inside DC to Manhattan NYC). From SF to Seattle, how do you get to the station in SF? In Seattle, how do you get from the station to your destination? What do you do to get around in Seattle? Generally, you need a car, which means renting a car, which is really expensive. The US is set up to handle this at airports pretty well: you get off your plane and go to the Hertz counter and pick up a car (and then after your trip is over and you've returned the car, get arrested for auto theft when Hertz reports your car as stolen--don't use Hertz). I haven't tried trains on the west coast, but on the east coast, I've never seen train stations set up with rental car counters.
The CA high speed rail is targeting a 2h40min travel time between SF and LA.
The flight saved you more than an hour.
Maybe if it was far cheaper than flying there might be more demand.
How early do you need to get to the train station?
Not to mention if you miss your train how quickly can you jump on another train?
I’m not arguing it’s not a nice alternative, but there is a reason why flying is still highly in demand even with high quality rail systems like in Europe.
You can jump on another flight faster than you can jump on another train? I rarely fly more than a couple times a month, but for me this is never true.
Only better if you live in the center of town.
When I took the trains in Europe I’d show up early, get tickets, find out what platform.
And stations in the middle of cities? Maybe, but unlikely building new infrastructure in existing cities.
And sure, if I want to go from SF to LA, there are 20+ flights per day. Are there going to be 20+ trains?
Why would you do that? Were you worried the train would depart early? Boarding a train is immediate.
> And stations in the middle of cities? Maybe, but unlikely building new infrastructure in existing cities.
1) "Maybe?" 2) The post to which you responded asked about a hypothetical Shinkansen style train from SF to LA, not one connecting El Segundo and Millbrae.
> And sure, if I want to go from SF to LA, there are 20+ flights per day. Are there going to be 20+ trains?
Going from Tokyo to Osaka is like taking the subway in terms of train frequency, so a lot more than that. There also aren't sprawling terminals to traverse on either end, which you quite likely will be forced to do when changing flights.
Let's talk about punctuality. If you think you're content don't look at the numbers for Shinkansen. As for air travel, clearly if you favor flying narrowbodies between cities only a few hundred miles apart you're an extremely patient person, but did you realize your flights between SF and LA will be lucky to break 90% on-time reliability? As a lifelong non-rev I do everything I can to avoid short flights like that.
In Tokyo, they’re fast partly because you don’t need to trek to the airport (yes, even Haneda) and deal with security etc. You just… get on the train and bam are downtown in the next place.
Even on the East Coast, there used to be way more rail lines that took passengers -- if this were a hundred years ago, I could have walked a mile or two to a spur which would take me to one of the mid-sized cities connected to The Big City by commuter rail; now they're mostly rail trails.
The railroads deliberately killed the passenger business because it has worse operating ratios and needs more capex. Investors and execs believed (and still believe) railroads are in long-term managed decline so capex and labor costs must be avoided wherever possible.
To give an example: Caltrain used to run all the way to LA. It was a profitable line the day Southern Pacific killed it. They used shills to buy up all the tickets for phantom riders then used the low passenger boarding numbers to justify to the US Railroad Commission that they should be allowed to close the route.
This strategy or variations of it were used all across the USA to deliberately kill profitable passenger service because it made the company financials look better: no need to buy or refurbish passenger cars nor pay stewards and conductors. Operating ratio looks better? Mission accomplished! Making less money doesn't make sense but profit is almost irrelevant if you think the whole business is in long-term decline. Better to kill anything that might require future capex or labor and instead optimize to get the most juice with the least squeeze of existing fruits.
Much like the shutdown of public transit across the USA. Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a semi-documentary for which the real-life villain General Motors was convicted of monopoly action in federal court! But the judge only fined them $1 because all the movers and shakers thought cars and airplanes were the future so who gives a crap about public transit, trains or the lot?
Passenger train service and public transit were systematically dismantled on purpose by elites who thought they knew better.
See Abandoned & Out-Of-Service Rail Lines map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=10akDabya8L6nWIJi-4...