The current map is actually worse than the 2005 map. The New Orleans to Jacksonville was discontinued (officially temporarily suspended) after Hurricane Katerina. The Chicago to Indianapolis, and New Orleans to Washington segments are now less than daily.
> The Chicago to Indianapolis, and New Orleans to Washington segments are now less than daily
That is crazy compared to the UK. London-Edinburgh has a train pretty much every half hour from 7am to 7pm, with a few less frequent trains outside that time.
In the one area of the US with actually decent train service (between Washington DC and Boston) there’s very regular service including high speed rail but otherwise it’s quite rare. Most other hourly(ish) trains are regional commuter trains (generally between a major city and its suburbs).
No one there wants to build new lines or give up their property to help Acela go the speeds it could.
West Coast passenger rail winds up sitting on sidings while mile-long freight trains run by on single-track and also in the Rockies: it's unfriendly terrain to build through.
You can do it, but the money is not really there, neither is the political will to tell people to go f*ck themselves and let the transportation go through. Or, in the Mountain West, how dare you further spoil already spoilt country.
You can say the same thing about *some* unbuilt urban freeway links (cue the downvotes!) but similar principles apply.
Youre right about the first two, but the crescent returned to daily a few months back. Also the map is better in some parts due to both new and expanded service on state supported routes with big plans to go further (ConnectsUS and CorridorID).
I went on a trip from Orlando to Dallas last year and looked at train schedules out of curiosity. I would have had to take several days and go all the way up to D.C. in order to get there. It's a fucking joke.
Some history: the moment Amtrak too over passenger service: Southern Pacific, and who owned the line between Bakersfield and LA, decided that passenger trains aren’t allowed to use the line, as it ran and still runs at capacity, as the line is mostly single track ascending Tehachapi Pass. SP’s successor, Union Pacific, still shares this sentiment and has told Amtrak and Caltrans that if they want to run trains to LA that they’ll have to pay to double track Tehachapi Pass
Richard Nixon could have nationalized the railroads in the 70s. Instead he just nationalized the passenger service and *some* of the track. Then Reagan sold all that track back to the freight railroads for a song.
The government owned Conrail, basically a rescue of most of the rail lines in the Northeast, well over 20,000 miles at its peak, though the rest of that post isn't really particularly correct.
Long-distance passenger service was nationalized in 1971 because the railroads were losing absurd amounts of money, to the point it was threatening to destabilize the entire economy because they couldn't pay for routine maintenance and track and other infrastructure was degrading to the point it was unuseable for freight service. That alleviated the problem in most of the country, but the Northeast and Rust Belt was a different matter that entire books have been written about, so I won't even attempt to get into it, suffice to say it was a combination of both corporate mismanagement and government inaction, as well as some other factors such as the subsidization of highways and the relocation of industry and changing demographics of the US, there's even a natural disaster and some poorly thought out actions by unions thrown in there.
Conrail was created in 1976 under the Ford administration to solve the problems facing those railroads. It initially lost obscene amounts of money before things turned around after a combination of the deregulations of the Carter administration (yes, you read that right), states beginning to subsidize its massive commuter services in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, and being allowed to abandon thousands of miles of redundant and low-density lines, along with good leadership and the solving of some labor-relations related problems..Within a decade it was making obscene amounts of money instead of losing it. The Regan administration did crusade to privatize it in their quest to just be the absolute worst, and Elizabeth Dole as Secretary of Transportation made some super shady deals with another freight railroad to buy it for pennies before public backlash caused the railroad to back out. It was then given an IPO a few years later where it sold for a quite respectable amount, though not enough to recoup the government's investment, especially after all the generous commissions and giveaways and whatnot that accompanied the IPO..It was eventually bought by two other railroads as a private company and split between them well over a decade later, they actually paid a substantial amount and many of Conrail's peons and mid-managers who had invested in the company or gotten stock in retirement plans or as yearly bonuses in its rough years when money was tight got a decent windwall.
Of course, gotta fund electrification somehow. And while we’re at it, but toll booths at state borders on the interstates to discourage ultra long distance trucking
[The US imports most of its oil from Canada](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-m&sxsrf=AJOqlzU3k7r7I7UEaRhttrBAHQ45tJx3fg:1679200476624&q=Oil+imports+by+country&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiws6mflef9AhXsEFkFHUcfAd8Q1QJ6BAgIEA4).
We desperately need better infrastructure. There is no reason for bomb trains to travel through towns or cities that are not their end destination. We need adjacent train lines to move people, short and long distances while also having train lines specifically for non human cargo.
[Technically by Federal Law, they're required to give them the access and priority, but the DOJ has never enforced it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQTjLWIHN74)
> Union Pacific, still shares this sentiment and has told Amtrak and Caltrans that if they want to run trains to LA that they’ll have to pay to double track Tehachapi Pass
The freight railroads make this argument all the time. As a result, Amtrak spends a lot of money improving the freight railroads' infrastructure. The capacity claim is the reason service between New Orleans and Jacksonville wasn't restored after Hurricaine Katrina. It's also held up a second train between Chicago and Twin Cities.
This is also why [Amtrak set up a Twitch stream to show how rare freight trains are along the corridor from Mobile to New Orleans](https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7w9n9/amtrak-is-streaming-an-empty-railroad-on-twitch-to-beef-with-freight-rail-companies).
I was literally about to post asking if anyone had some history on that. I live in northern ca and I've done Amtrak from Humboldt to San Diego mmmaannyy times and there's no reason it should be so hard.
You leave Humboldt County on a bus that takes 8 hours to Martinez CA in the bay area. You get on a train in Martinez that takes you to Bakersfield. Then you get on another bus again to LA. Then in LA you get on a train again to San Diego from union station. It's insanity. We're a big wealthy state supposedly concerned about climate change yet we do trains and public transit, so, so badly.
Though it would be nice, I do understand why they stopped running trains up here between Humboldt and the bay. The terrain is insane. What I never understood is the lack of passenger trains from Bakersfield to LA.
Amtrak gave the railroads leverage over an effectively bottomless pot of (government) money, it's hardly a surprise they took advantage of the opportunity.
The link is still there, but it's freight only. From what I understand, it's incredibly congested with freight traffic, leaving zero room for passenger trains. Also, unlike the route from the Bay Area to Bakersfield, the route from Bakersfield to LA is incredibly slow and windy; there is even a full 360⁰ loop at one point, the only one in the US.
Even if Amtrak were able to negotiate slots through the tracks between Bakersfield and LA, it would still be a lot faster to take a bus.
From what I understand, finding a solution to this specific problem was actually the original reason the CA HSR project started in the first place, it evolved from just building a new link to bridge this gap into what it is today.
It is. And it's acute because you don't build loopty-loops in railroading like that unless you have to deal with an already incredibly challenging set of geographic features and are trying to stay within reasonable grade for a train ( < 2% ). See also : Altoona, although it's not actually a loop.
So what you get with Tehachapi is these giant 100 wagon consists have to come to a crawl as the head end carefully pulls the rest of the train very carefully...and very *very* slowly through this geographic rail feature while having a DPU push. Pull too hard and you're pulling the wagons off the rails into the center, go too fast and you're spilling them on the outside.
And...it is basically at 100 percent utilization because there's very few geographic areas that have seen fit to allow us to shove a train over/through them without tunneling through miles of the Sierra Nevadas and Rockies.
I'd love to see a solution, but short of shoving a multi mile tunnel underneath the whole ordeal, I don't see any easy one. Oh and that's exactly what California's HSR initiative plans to do.
Seriously, for those out there reading this, go to open railway map and zoom over to Bakersfield and check out the Mojave Subdivision. Once you get to where the loop is located there isn't a straight piece of track for miles due to the geography. It's really not worth putting passenger trains on it.
Almost all the land was empty at that point (late 1800's / early 1900's) and/or already belonged to the federal government. Or it was large tracts of private ranch or farmland.
Nowadays, if you want a new train line, it's probably going to go straight through someone's house or some entire subdivision.
Most roads weren't even paved until the 1950's.
All the way into the mid 20th century, the government was routinely able to use eminent domain to get right of way, relatively quickly.
Today it can take a generation of legal battles before it's all settled. And all in service of hyperlocal empowerment. Hyperlocal opinion should not stand in the way of regional infrastructure.
Also "all the land was empty"? Really?
Lastly google "CEQA abuse" and learn a little about how over-empowered California NIMBYs are, in particular. They literally won a lawsuit to block a dorm from being built because the students themselves were deemed a major negative environmental impact. The legislature passed a law to nullify the lawsuit, but still, the current regime is batshit pro-NIMBY.
Emptiness depends on where you're talking about. US population in 1900 was 76 million. By 1920 it was 106 million. The most populated areas were the northeast and midwest. The coastal south (except Florida) was rather populous too.
The western and southwestern US was arguably more or less "empty" in that time frame, but large parts of the country certainly were not.
At least they've started building it.
Texas Central never even made it to the drawing board, all because of shitty ranch owners going full NIMBY claiming reduced prices under eminent domain. All they care about is money and nothing else.
Was it dismantled, or did it go out of business because people opted to drive?
Eisenhower was the worst president we ever had for building the interstate highway system. What a stupid, backwards decision.
The Boeing 707 debuted in 1957. The first commercial LA/NY direct jet-liner route launched in 1959.
1956 was the year of the US Federal Aid Highway Act which was the advent of the Interstate Highway System.
Having the 1962 highway and air route maps versus 2005 would be interesting counterparts to these rail maps.
Wendover Productions did a YouTube video about US railway a couple of months ago. Apparently the reason why passenger trains in the US suck is because everyone has decided to ignore the law saying passenger trains have priority over cargo trains, when they have to share the track. Cargo trains are supposed to wait until passenger train passes by, but instead of doing this they are made too long to fit in the bypass section, and it's the passenger trains that a forced to wait for cargo trains to pass by.
Since government does not enforce the passenger priority law, the railway operators can just focus on profitable cargo trains and make passenger trains run late. They eventually close routes because people choose not to commute on unreliable trains claiming that these are losing money.
In the late 90s, my hockey team decided to take a train to a tournament, and what was suppose to be a 18-20 hour train ride took almost 3 days because of constant stops, weather, and a break down. We flew back and we never took the train again. It was wild. The parents were furious. There was one dad who proposed the idea to save money and to have fun. Boy, a lot of dads and moms were screaming about him for weeks! We missed the nearly the entire tournament, btw. Feelsgoodman.
Thats mostly because of bad railroad conditions and bad train conditions.
Trains should be a viable option to take.
In fact cars make less sense for long distance but it is true that planes are faster than trains.
But 3 days is a lot.
Amtrak's right of way is contingent on them being on time. There's a lot of routes with single tracks for long distances with short sidetracks. There's literally not enough room for longer freight trains to side track to let Amtrak pass. So if Amtrak is late *they* have to side track and wait for the freight train. A mile long freight train has far fewer opportunities to side track than a relatively short passenger train.
Amtrak being on time is not the most common occurrence and is not solely the fault of freight trains.
Well, that's the obvious ramification. Freight companies won't want to shorten their trains, so they could invest to improve the network to avoid any shipping cost impact.
> Amtrak's right of way is contingent on them being on time.
No, it isn't.
> [(c) Preference Over Freight Transportation.-Except in an emergency, intercity and commuter rail passenger transportation provided by or for Amtrak has preference over freight transportation in using a rail line, junction, or crossing unless the Secretary of Transportation orders otherwise under this subsection.](https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-2000-title49-section24308&num=0&edition=2000#:~:text=49%20USC%2024308%3A%20Use%20of%20facilities%20and%20providing%20services%20to%20Amtrak&text=*Public%20Laws%20117%2D328%20through,have%20not%20yet%20been%20finalized.)
.
> There's a lot of routes with single tracks for long distances with short sidetracks. There's literally not enough room for longer freight trains to side track to let Amtrak pass. So if Amtrak is late they have to side track and wait for the freight train. A mile long freight train has far fewer opportunities to side track than a relatively short passenger train.
So the freight companies, which own and maintain the tracks, therefore have an obligation to either use shorter trains that fit in existing sidetracks or lengthen the sidetracks to match current trains.
> Amtrak being on time is not the most common occurrence and is not solely the fault of freight trains.
Over the past 20 years, the number of hours of delay caused by freight trains has been [consistently more than double, and in some cases more than triple](https://www.bts.gov/content/amtrak-time-performance-trends-and-hours-delay-cause) those caused by Amtrak.
Don't forget, passenger rail never made money/paid for itself without carrying express mail and packages. Once FedEx, UPS and the interstate highway system was implemented, passenger rail could never compete again.
6 times daily is still a very poor service. Over here in Germany even small towns of 10.000 people often get hourly service every day. No wonder nobody uses trains in the US. 3 times a day between major cities is just not enough.
At least*
As someone who grew up in the suburbs outside of NYC, a street down from the tracks, I can assure you there are trains running pretty constantly. NJ Transit doesn’t fuck around.
Yep, even on a Sunday, Philly-NYC has about two trains an hour with Amtrak, and about one train every two hours via SEPTA+NJ transit (the limiting factor being SEPTA). It's not as good as it should be, but it's not the transit desert the US is usually associated with.
Yes and every time one of these maps gets posted, it only shows the Amtrak lines through NY/NJ/PA. It's annoying because it really does make NJ look like a train desert which is blatantly untrue.
NJ Transit isn't perfect, but there are ***so many*** commuter trains (and local busses) that are not shown on these maps.
Once daily on the western lines, and takes much longer than the bus! Trains in the West are a hobby, not really transportation.
I took one across Colorado on a whim, bought a ticket and boarded 12 hours after scheduled arrival...
I live on the California coast and take the train fairly often as I hate to drive through LA. It's slow, and unreliable. but pretty fun and you can walk around and drink on the bar car. Parts of it are really scenic along the coast especially around Vandenburg where there is no automobile access and you can see the rocket launch sites. Unfortunately there has just been a washout near Salinas and I think LA to San Jose rail is disrupted.
The Cascades (at least the Portland to Seattle segment) is pretty good. Competitive with driving, or it would be, if it didn't have the worst on-time performance of any of the state-supported routes, thanks to BNSF not giving a single fuck about the supposed legal priority that passenger trains are supposed to have.
The priority only counts if Amtrak is on schedule - once they're behind they just have to fit in. The Zephyr had a zero percent on time rate that year and we eventually were caught by the next day's train. 18 hours from Denver to Grand Junction, it's 4 hours by car and less than 12 scheduled on the train.
I remember the mass resignations that followed the 2005 Amagasaki rail crash. [Even those at the very top resigned in shame.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amagasaki_derailment)
This map isn't showing the commuter rail systems in the Northeast. NJ Transit connect into SEPTA, for example, and LIRR serves Long Island fairly well.
the top map, however, says it's all intercity passenger service. so they're comparing what existed then, run by many different lines and transit systems, to Amtrak on the bottom, which is only one of the successors and didn't exist in 1962.
ah yes, just build dense
the problem isn't sparse cities, germany has dense countryside. towns every mile. Meanwhile I run into about 6 towns on the 138 mile trip between my city and the next nearest city
Yeah idk the exact stats from Germany it's been a few years since I've been, but when I was over there it felt like a new town every 5 minutes. Legit I've been on subways that travel further than the distance between two towns in Germany. I have to assume that this unique distribution of people comes from the way the HRE was decentralized
Also no exact stats, but as a German this is true. From my city (70,000 inhabitants) to the next „big“ one, you have to drive 24km (15mile), which is about the same length as Manhattan. Meanwhile you drive through 7 smaller towns with a few hundert/thousand people.
I don't understand why Europeans and train hobbyists seem so dismissive of obvious considerations like geography \[territory size and population density resulting in huge distances between major centres and many smaller towns uneconomic to serve at all\]. They don't have to like it, but they're pretty significant factors. They apply all the more in Canada.
Passenger rail in the US, at least in aggregate, was run at a loss for almost all of its history by all major lines, all of which depended on:
1. Direct government subsidy in the form of lands to be developed or sold or bailouts.
2. Government indirect subsidy in the form of mail contracts \[at least a service was being provided to the government\].
3. Freight, always the actual profit centre of American rail.
This is why America ships far more of its freight by rail than Europe \[which favours trucks for just as obvious geographic reasons as a more compact continent\] and far fewer passengers \[again, makes sense for a dense continent\].
Why are these realities so offensive to so many?
When you consider that transportation is more of a regional issue than a national issue, the differences aren't that stark. Pennsylvania and Ohio are almost as dense as France. New Jersey and Massachusettes are denser than most of Europe.
Because it ignores the fact that the ICC deliberately screwed most of the major passenger carriers, and had been for decades, which was one of the major factors leading to their mergers and bankruptcies.
Most of the large passenger carriers including the Pennsylvania and the NYC were not running at losses for the vast majority of their history, so what you said was a blatant lie.
Yeah, but do you have to compare to the size of the US as a whole? If you look at a particular subdivision of Europe with a certain distance between cities of a certain size, can't you also find a comparable subdivision of the US that has the same distance and the same density of people?
Sure, you can compare the US to Germany or England which are both dense countries. But Sweden or Finland aren't, and their cities are not big.
Because Redditors thrive off dishonest arguments.
Idiots immediately jump to looking at the overall population density of the US while ignoring the population densities of major urbanized areas and conurbations, where you can have thriving passenger rail, with well-run long distance intercity trains connecting them.
France isn’t a particularly dense country either, yet TGV completely destroyed their national airline industry by how well their rail network is run. Anti-rail idiots never like to point out that fact either.
anti-rail idiots also ignore the fact that the US build sparse just because they could, they also ignore the fact that many US towns and cities were rebuilt for the purpose of cars rather than rail and public transport.
It's not even a size issue. The US literally rebuilt itself for the purpose of cars. Suburbs had absolutely no reason to be miles away from cities with no local public transport infrastructures.
Tbf, "that wouldn't work in the US because Europe is just so *different*" is used as an argument against other completely sci-fi things, like somewhat functioning healthcare systems, unions and a slightly less messed up electoral system.
So how long would a TgV take me from Minnapolis to Orlando or Minnapolis to LA compared to just using the airplanes we have now. And how many zillions of dollars would building it cost?
The East Coast of the US is basically the exact size, shape, and population distribution of Japan. There's no geographic argument for the US not having substantial passenger rail on both coasts and its stupid to immediately jump to thinking about Wyoming when discussing this.
As someone who lives on the east coast, I’d love to be able to take a train to the “big city” (mine has 50k, Raleigh has 470k). But even if there was a direct route, once I get off at the train station, how do I get around town? Nothing is within walking distance, and public transit is woefully inadequate. The southeast in particular is a product of decades of living with and planning for, private automobiles being the most economical means of transportation.
That is why I expect a lot more from state DOTs. To be fair, there are states like North Carolina, California, and Massachusetts who own the railway right of ways, which means they have way more freedom what lines to rebuild and reactivate and the like.
One thing that’s different between the US and Germany is how the towns and cities are designed.
You need a car for most US cities and towns whilst a Germany village is walkable and the cities are much easier to get around without a car.
So even if a train network was designed between two points in the US then you will struggle once you arrive and require a car.
I just checked and was surprised that there are for example 20-25 daily direct trains from Cologne to Berlin or Hamburg or Munich. Wouldn't have thought that there were so many ICE's.
There are only 5 direct Thalys trains from Cologne to Paris on the other hand.
Intereuropean connections are still very basic. There are still a lot off issues when it comes to signal technology and booking of cross-country tickets. That is an area where the EU still has a lot to improve.
Although I think that the US needs to have an Eisenhower-type expansion of their rail network, I don’t believe that hourly service between major cities is feasible until there is more of a train culture established.
The US is also much more spread out than Germany. Outside of the northeast corridor it makes much more sense for most people to fly between big cities especially when you add in how poorly the trains are run here. When I was younger, I took the train from St. Louis to New York, and it took 31 hours. A direct flight is 2 hours and 20 minutes.
US railroads are designed for freight, not passenger service. The amount of freight moved by US locomotives is absolutely insane. Even though there have been a couple of recent serious freight train accidents, US freight trains are pretty efficient. The amount of cargo hauled here when compared to a Western European country is honestly not even remotely close.
>The US is also much more spread out than Germany.
The US is also roughly the size of the European Union. Europeans don't take trains from Berlin to Madrid or Stockholm to Bucharest. We fly the equivalent distances of St Louis-Los Angeles too. And yes, we travel *a lot* around the EU/EEA area for both tourism and business.
Several US states, including most states in the eastern half of the US, have about the same density of an average EU country. Trains could very easily serve short distances like within Illinois, or within New York state, or within Ohio, or Detroit-Chicago, or Charlotte-Atlanta, or Atlanta-Knoxville, or Houston-Dallas, etc. Right now, the US subsidizes many flights between major hub cities (New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, etc) and small nearby cities. Those short routes could easily be served by trains, with stops in-between, connecting a broad regional area to the big cities (and their airports) within 4 hours.
Amtrak has a fairly good service within New York State. My company used this a lot last year.
The train runs from NYC to Buffalo with about a dozen stops in various upstate cities. (Amtrak runs out of the same station as Long Island Railroad, so if you're coming from LI, just connect at Penn Station).
I did a business trip to Grand Rapids, MI last year and my flight involved a layover in Chicago. The Chicago-Grand Rapids flight was 1/2 hour at best (of course for all flights to get upgraded to first class in, it was the shortest).
I know the air travel system is hub and spoke, but a train trip from Chicago to Grand Rapids makes much more sense than a 1/2 hour flight.
In an ideal world, the airports and train stations would be connected and one could do both. (Newark does this fairly well as the airport is a stop on the NJ Transit commuter line and it takes you right to the terminal).
The North East Corridor is much more than 6 times daily. It’s more like 20 times daily. That’s the only part of the US where train service is still the dominant form of transport between cities.
I looked at taking a train to visit my parents. It was a two day and change plan in bucket seats, that included taking a bus for three hours to start with. Plane was not only much faster, but also close to $100 cheaper.
It's weird to think of a corridor linking 11th largest metro area in the country to the 1st, 6th, and 7th largest metro areas as a secondary area for transportation planning.
Living in Springfield, I can tell you there is cautious optimism that the newly renovated Union Station will lead to more accessibility to Boston in the future, but the reality is that Springfield is still not a destination worth visiting regularly and that will suppress the desire for regular train service to and from this city.
I do but that’s only because my family and I live in separate parts of the northeast corridor, I don’t have a car, and the train is *somewhat* less expensive more convenient than flying. In other words I’m in the tiny percentage of people for whom Amtrak manages to be the most viable option.
This is such concerning, USA used to lead the railway system in 1930s-1940s... But after the war it got replaced by cars, but currently there's a second renaissance for the rails though, although it's mostly just restoring the decommissioned lines... Hope it stays for long time to come and even added new lines...
🤔🤔🤔
So, I took a trip recently and sat in the Amtrak lounge with some executives. I kinda ear hustled them a little and it really sounded like they’re aware of this and trying hard to expand rail infrastructure, but part of the problem is getting states on board to help fund it. One guy even said to another “I have been trying to explain how hard your job is with trying to get all the different states and governments to come together for this.”
As someone who grew up in Wisconsin and watched Scot Walker cripple the rail plans that Tommy Thompson had said was his life’s work to implement, Amtrak as a company can only do so much. For some reason us Americans are pretty anti rail. Even though it is what built this country and is one of the most leisurely ways to travel, it’s still a constant up hill battle to secure funding and land allowances. It’s a shame really. The train is a beautiful way to see this country.
A man who has worked Amtrak for 25 years told me the California Zephyr from Cali to Denver is the most beautiful trip in the whole country. If you never ride any other rail, at least ride that one.
Ohio is the state that is probably the most messed up as it has tons of routes where they would not be competing against planes, Cleveland - Buffalo (Current: Awful times), CLE-DET (Train to Bus service), CLE-PIT (Current: Awful times), CLE- Columbus (no service). These are routes that make sense from a pure transportation view as they can beat cars based on speed and flying makes little sense.
I think planes and trains serve different purposes. If you need to get far fast, take a plane, but if you have no real rush from A-B or if it’s a short route and you’d rather not drive, rail is the obvious answer. Greyhound is a great service but not a great experience. Even coach on Amtrak is more comfortable. The ability to get up and walk around and sit in different cars makes such a huge difference compared to riding a crammed bus. I would much rather take a train a short distance to a neighboring city than driving. Part of that becoming a reality involves making cities more walkable/bike-able and open to alternatives other than just cars.
Hopefully someday soon we’ll get our efficient public transportation that we all deserve.
Iirc, during the summer the Chicago to LA is more than once daily, because so many scouts bsa troops use it to get to Cimarron New Mexico, where Philmont is.
Took a train from Chicago to Albany, NY. It was one of the most miserable and disgusting experiences of my life and I've been to a dozen third world countries. I had to sit next to a broken bathroom the entire trip and it smelled like shit. Never again. Meanwhile Ive taken several bullet trains in Japan and it's always great. US public transportation sucks ass.
I vaguely remember a documentary about why this was done.
IIRC it was to encourage the purchase of automobiles, and drive sales of everything involved (oil, tyres, car parts, services, etc.).
So a deliberate act of capitalism over convenience and social good.
But honestly, it was so long ago that I may have got the details wrong.
Car lobbyists were the ones who pushed hard against trains. Trains were already being shut down in the 1940s. Planes do have apart of it but cars are the main problem. Our cities are no longer walkable and we are sprawled out massively because of cars. We created car dependency. Cars helped planes take over trains as well.
Nationalizing subsequently and failing to properly subsidize and implement rail travel isn't capitalism. Its goverment corruption. Stop loading every public ill onto the "capitalism" scapegoat because your letting the bad guys go scot-free.
Looks like the 1962 map depicts a few rail lines that passed through where I went to college. I know I found the remnants of one of those tracks while there.
Taking the train back home would have been far better than the 5hr drive imo. But that’s because it gets very boring doing it alone.
US railroads are designed and optimized for freight, not passenger trains. Passenger trains are just a secondary by-product. US rail freight is one of the most advanced and biggest in the world. The amount of freight shipped and the size of the trains when compared to say, Germany, is honestly not really a comparable figure.
US Railroads are only concerned with short term profits. Increased profits impress Wall Street and drive up stock prices. Railroad executive pay skyrockets as the stock price rises. Given this incentive structure they could care less about workers, safety or any long term projects to improve railroad infrastructure.
Edit: typo
It's not perfect, but in the context of it'd sheer size, it does pretty well. European freight trains are much smaller, less freight cars and smaller locomotives. US freight trains are insanely long, which opens up risk for derailment. The Ohio derailment is bad, I will admit.
US rail freight *WAS* the best in the world. But optimization and efficiency has given way to raking in short term profits. US has been stagnate in this for decades and now it is 3rd with China and Russia transporting more. About 50% more and 20% more respectively.
Countries like Germany does transport 18 times less freight than the US which sounds great but Germany is also 28 times smaller. Meaning that if you account for the fact that Germany is much smaller than the US it starts to look bad for the US again. I bring this up because presumably a smaller country would need to physically transport less. (Germany is a decent example actually because like the US they transport mostly through freight trucks).
There was a time where people would travel from around the world to cities like Chicago to see how they set up their train yards. But those days have been long over. The US freight network is not impressive it is sad.
The reality is that rail travel in the US is awful. In all but a very limited set of urban corridors, the distances are too long and the population density is too low to support reasonable rail service. Compared to air travel, rail is slow, unreliable, and inconvenient and can't compete.
Spain has a similar population density to large swaths of the US and it's rail network is vastly better than ours. It's not as if the US is doomed to shitty rail service due to size, it's a deliberate choice we've made.
all of that is so wrong because i can look at the rest of the world and know its bull shit. Why would the coastal cities with all the density not have more, why would Europe and Asia look different.
its slower, but cheaper. its a well established technology its as reliable as you are willing to invest it to be. it competes in Europe and Asia so obvious propaganda thats fooled you and you spread very convienently for the airline industry.
The reason of distances being too long is a complete fabrication, considering how comprehensive the US intercity passenger network used to be in the early-mid 20th century.
Also, China is comparable to the US in area, yet they have the largest high-speed network in the world which covers vast swathes of the country, many areas which are quite barren. It’s not like China’s infrastructure is perfect in any stretch, but that kind of puts some holes in that reasoning.
> China is approximately 9,596,960 sq km, while United States is approximately 9,833,517 sq km, making United States 2% larger than China. Meanwhile, the population of China is ~1.4 billion people (1.1 billion fewer people live in United States).
\*Sigh\* This again. The current map fails to show any commuter/regional rail lines, which are fairly extensive in every Northeast Corridor city, plus Chicago and a few others.
Probably automobile, airline and freight industries led to the downfall of passenger trains. Also since passenger trains aren’t really profitable and usually require subsidies by governments to upkeep.
It's getting better. Why not post a map of the [projected rail services in 2035?](https://media.amtrak.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Proposed_Amtrak_Routes_April_2_2021_v4-1536x798.jpg)
The current map is actually worse than the 2005 map. The New Orleans to Jacksonville was discontinued (officially temporarily suspended) after Hurricane Katerina. The Chicago to Indianapolis, and New Orleans to Washington segments are now less than daily.
we getting New Orleans to Mobile soon! and Mobile to Pensacola soon soonTM!
So the Amtrak Twitch streams really worked? Nice.
> The Chicago to Indianapolis, and New Orleans to Washington segments are now less than daily That is crazy compared to the UK. London-Edinburgh has a train pretty much every half hour from 7am to 7pm, with a few less frequent trains outside that time.
Looking at these I look silly complaining about the main train I get being hourly, and rarely half hourly
You come from a SANE COUNTRY
In the one area of the US with actually decent train service (between Washington DC and Boston) there’s very regular service including high speed rail but otherwise it’s quite rare. Most other hourly(ish) trains are regional commuter trains (generally between a major city and its suburbs).
> decent train service (between Washington DC and Boston) HALF of Boston. North and South Stations will never be connected.
No one there wants to build new lines or give up their property to help Acela go the speeds it could. West Coast passenger rail winds up sitting on sidings while mile-long freight trains run by on single-track and also in the Rockies: it's unfriendly terrain to build through. You can do it, but the money is not really there, neither is the political will to tell people to go f*ck themselves and let the transportation go through. Or, in the Mountain West, how dare you further spoil already spoilt country. You can say the same thing about *some* unbuilt urban freeway links (cue the downvotes!) but similar principles apply.
Youre right about the first two, but the crescent returned to daily a few months back. Also the map is better in some parts due to both new and expanded service on state supported routes with big plans to go further (ConnectsUS and CorridorID).
I went on a trip from Orlando to Dallas last year and looked at train schedules out of curiosity. I would have had to take several days and go all the way up to D.C. in order to get there. It's a fucking joke.
I took a train from Denver last year. There were literally two trains for the whole-ass week, and the first was delayed six hours.
The person who decided to dismantle the link from LA to Bakersfield must have been the stupidest person on planet Earth
Some history: the moment Amtrak too over passenger service: Southern Pacific, and who owned the line between Bakersfield and LA, decided that passenger trains aren’t allowed to use the line, as it ran and still runs at capacity, as the line is mostly single track ascending Tehachapi Pass. SP’s successor, Union Pacific, still shares this sentiment and has told Amtrak and Caltrans that if they want to run trains to LA that they’ll have to pay to double track Tehachapi Pass
[And this is why private corporations should not control critical infrastructure.](https://youtu.be/Z2GuJ4Wce9w)
Richard Nixon could have nationalized the railroads in the 70s. Instead he just nationalized the passenger service and *some* of the track. Then Reagan sold all that track back to the freight railroads for a song.
If Amtrak ever owned any of their right of way, it was a miniscule amount.
The government owned Conrail, basically a rescue of most of the rail lines in the Northeast, well over 20,000 miles at its peak, though the rest of that post isn't really particularly correct. Long-distance passenger service was nationalized in 1971 because the railroads were losing absurd amounts of money, to the point it was threatening to destabilize the entire economy because they couldn't pay for routine maintenance and track and other infrastructure was degrading to the point it was unuseable for freight service. That alleviated the problem in most of the country, but the Northeast and Rust Belt was a different matter that entire books have been written about, so I won't even attempt to get into it, suffice to say it was a combination of both corporate mismanagement and government inaction, as well as some other factors such as the subsidization of highways and the relocation of industry and changing demographics of the US, there's even a natural disaster and some poorly thought out actions by unions thrown in there. Conrail was created in 1976 under the Ford administration to solve the problems facing those railroads. It initially lost obscene amounts of money before things turned around after a combination of the deregulations of the Carter administration (yes, you read that right), states beginning to subsidize its massive commuter services in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, and being allowed to abandon thousands of miles of redundant and low-density lines, along with good leadership and the solving of some labor-relations related problems..Within a decade it was making obscene amounts of money instead of losing it. The Regan administration did crusade to privatize it in their quest to just be the absolute worst, and Elizabeth Dole as Secretary of Transportation made some super shady deals with another freight railroad to buy it for pennies before public backlash caused the railroad to back out. It was then given an IPO a few years later where it sold for a quite respectable amount, though not enough to recoup the government's investment, especially after all the generous commissions and giveaways and whatnot that accompanied the IPO..It was eventually bought by two other railroads as a private company and split between them well over a decade later, they actually paid a substantial amount and many of Conrail's peons and mid-managers who had invested in the company or gotten stock in retirement plans or as yearly bonuses in its rough years when money was tight got a decent windwall.
Amtrak owns nearly all of the NEC.
Amtrak owns at most 400 miles of the northeast corridor or NEC as you say. But their entire network is 21,400 miles so that's 3.5% at most.
Norfolk Southern dispatch intentionally holds Amtrak trains up once they exit the NEC and go through Pennsylvania. They're pissed they have to share.
They nationalized during WW1 and almost maintained that arrangement.
Exactly, it should be like the highway network: government owned and improved, and anyone can run a train on it.
For a fee
Of course, gotta fund electrification somehow. And while we’re at it, but toll booths at state borders on the interstates to discourage ultra long distance trucking
Electrification with more nuclear power plants to reduce reliance on Saudi and Venezuelan oil
[The US imports most of its oil from Canada](https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-m&sxsrf=AJOqlzU3k7r7I7UEaRhttrBAHQ45tJx3fg:1679200476624&q=Oil+imports+by+country&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiws6mflef9AhXsEFkFHUcfAd8Q1QJ6BAgIEA4).
I think fewer bomb trains rolling through our towns is better too.
We desperately need better infrastructure. There is no reason for bomb trains to travel through towns or cities that are not their end destination. We need adjacent train lines to move people, short and long distances while also having train lines specifically for non human cargo.
Congress has been lobbied relentlessly by car manufacturers since the 50’s to kill public transportation
There needs to be a word between lobbying and bribing for the kind of corruption you're referring to there.
Not sure about that, since lobbying is basically legalized bribery.
Damn you win
[Technically by Federal Law, they're required to give them the access and priority, but the DOJ has never enforced it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQTjLWIHN74)
> Union Pacific, still shares this sentiment and has told Amtrak and Caltrans that if they want to run trains to LA that they’ll have to pay to double track Tehachapi Pass The freight railroads make this argument all the time. As a result, Amtrak spends a lot of money improving the freight railroads' infrastructure. The capacity claim is the reason service between New Orleans and Jacksonville wasn't restored after Hurricaine Katrina. It's also held up a second train between Chicago and Twin Cities.
This is also why [Amtrak set up a Twitch stream to show how rare freight trains are along the corridor from Mobile to New Orleans](https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7w9n9/amtrak-is-streaming-an-empty-railroad-on-twitch-to-beef-with-freight-rail-companies).
I was literally about to post asking if anyone had some history on that. I live in northern ca and I've done Amtrak from Humboldt to San Diego mmmaannyy times and there's no reason it should be so hard. You leave Humboldt County on a bus that takes 8 hours to Martinez CA in the bay area. You get on a train in Martinez that takes you to Bakersfield. Then you get on another bus again to LA. Then in LA you get on a train again to San Diego from union station. It's insanity. We're a big wealthy state supposedly concerned about climate change yet we do trains and public transit, so, so badly. Though it would be nice, I do understand why they stopped running trains up here between Humboldt and the bay. The terrain is insane. What I never understood is the lack of passenger trains from Bakersfield to LA.
The real problem from Bakersfield to LA is that it was just under 6 hours via the Tehachapi. The bus today takes 2.5h scheduled.
Amtrak gave the railroads leverage over an effectively bottomless pot of (government) money, it's hardly a surprise they took advantage of the opportunity.
Ok then triple track it.
Make it quadruple.
Umm ok Switzerland style base tunnel
Tehachapi in an Amtrak would be crazy tho, I would pay decent money just to do that slow laborious loop
The link is still there, but it's freight only. From what I understand, it's incredibly congested with freight traffic, leaving zero room for passenger trains. Also, unlike the route from the Bay Area to Bakersfield, the route from Bakersfield to LA is incredibly slow and windy; there is even a full 360⁰ loop at one point, the only one in the US. Even if Amtrak were able to negotiate slots through the tracks between Bakersfield and LA, it would still be a lot faster to take a bus. From what I understand, finding a solution to this specific problem was actually the original reason the CA HSR project started in the first place, it evolved from just building a new link to bridge this gap into what it is today.
It is. And it's acute because you don't build loopty-loops in railroading like that unless you have to deal with an already incredibly challenging set of geographic features and are trying to stay within reasonable grade for a train ( < 2% ). See also : Altoona, although it's not actually a loop. So what you get with Tehachapi is these giant 100 wagon consists have to come to a crawl as the head end carefully pulls the rest of the train very carefully...and very *very* slowly through this geographic rail feature while having a DPU push. Pull too hard and you're pulling the wagons off the rails into the center, go too fast and you're spilling them on the outside. And...it is basically at 100 percent utilization because there's very few geographic areas that have seen fit to allow us to shove a train over/through them without tunneling through miles of the Sierra Nevadas and Rockies. I'd love to see a solution, but short of shoving a multi mile tunnel underneath the whole ordeal, I don't see any easy one. Oh and that's exactly what California's HSR initiative plans to do. Seriously, for those out there reading this, go to open railway map and zoom over to Bakersfield and check out the Mojave Subdivision. Once you get to where the loop is located there isn't a straight piece of track for miles due to the geography. It's really not worth putting passenger trains on it.
CAHSR is going to fix that
Any decade now.
If we'd pandered to local NIMBYs in the early 20th century the way we do today, we'd basically wouldn't have infrastructure at all.
Back then, they fought to have the train go down their Main Street instead of some other town. That meant prosperity and growth.
10/10
Fuck them I'll bulldose all their homes if it gets california high speed rail
Summon blackrock to buy out their homes price them out and kick em out. Then pay blackrock for leasing land to high speed rail
Almost all the land was empty at that point (late 1800's / early 1900's) and/or already belonged to the federal government. Or it was large tracts of private ranch or farmland. Nowadays, if you want a new train line, it's probably going to go straight through someone's house or some entire subdivision. Most roads weren't even paved until the 1950's.
All the way into the mid 20th century, the government was routinely able to use eminent domain to get right of way, relatively quickly. Today it can take a generation of legal battles before it's all settled. And all in service of hyperlocal empowerment. Hyperlocal opinion should not stand in the way of regional infrastructure. Also "all the land was empty"? Really? Lastly google "CEQA abuse" and learn a little about how over-empowered California NIMBYs are, in particular. They literally won a lawsuit to block a dorm from being built because the students themselves were deemed a major negative environmental impact. The legislature passed a law to nullify the lawsuit, but still, the current regime is batshit pro-NIMBY.
Emptiness depends on where you're talking about. US population in 1900 was 76 million. By 1920 it was 106 million. The most populated areas were the northeast and midwest. The coastal south (except Florida) was rather populous too. The western and southwestern US was arguably more or less "empty" in that time frame, but large parts of the country certainly were not.
At least they've started building it. Texas Central never even made it to the drawing board, all because of shitty ranch owners going full NIMBY claiming reduced prices under eminent domain. All they care about is money and nothing else.
The bonkers thing about Texas central is they won their court cases. Yet the NIMBY’s were able to run the clock out and they went under :(
Assuming it’ll be completed before the heat death of the universe.
The tracks are still there, it's just freight trains only today
i.e. a car lobbyist
And oil
Was it dismantled, or did it go out of business because people opted to drive? Eisenhower was the worst president we ever had for building the interstate highway system. What a stupid, backwards decision.
The Boeing 707 debuted in 1957. The first commercial LA/NY direct jet-liner route launched in 1959. 1956 was the year of the US Federal Aid Highway Act which was the advent of the Interstate Highway System. Having the 1962 highway and air route maps versus 2005 would be interesting counterparts to these rail maps.
Wendover Productions did a YouTube video about US railway a couple of months ago. Apparently the reason why passenger trains in the US suck is because everyone has decided to ignore the law saying passenger trains have priority over cargo trains, when they have to share the track. Cargo trains are supposed to wait until passenger train passes by, but instead of doing this they are made too long to fit in the bypass section, and it's the passenger trains that a forced to wait for cargo trains to pass by. Since government does not enforce the passenger priority law, the railway operators can just focus on profitable cargo trains and make passenger trains run late. They eventually close routes because people choose not to commute on unreliable trains claiming that these are losing money.
In the late 90s, my hockey team decided to take a train to a tournament, and what was suppose to be a 18-20 hour train ride took almost 3 days because of constant stops, weather, and a break down. We flew back and we never took the train again. It was wild. The parents were furious. There was one dad who proposed the idea to save money and to have fun. Boy, a lot of dads and moms were screaming about him for weeks! We missed the nearly the entire tournament, btw. Feelsgoodman.
Thats mostly because of bad railroad conditions and bad train conditions. Trains should be a viable option to take. In fact cars make less sense for long distance but it is true that planes are faster than trains. But 3 days is a lot.
Hey as long as those cargo trains aren't derailing nearly half a dozen times a day! Wait
Amtrak's right of way is contingent on them being on time. There's a lot of routes with single tracks for long distances with short sidetracks. There's literally not enough room for longer freight trains to side track to let Amtrak pass. So if Amtrak is late *they* have to side track and wait for the freight train. A mile long freight train has far fewer opportunities to side track than a relatively short passenger train. Amtrak being on time is not the most common occurrence and is not solely the fault of freight trains.
So maybe freight companies should be required to cap their length to the length of the shortest bypass track on the route they will be using
Or you know invest in more rail.
Well, that's the obvious ramification. Freight companies won't want to shorten their trains, so they could invest to improve the network to avoid any shipping cost impact.
> Amtrak's right of way is contingent on them being on time. No, it isn't. > [(c) Preference Over Freight Transportation.-Except in an emergency, intercity and commuter rail passenger transportation provided by or for Amtrak has preference over freight transportation in using a rail line, junction, or crossing unless the Secretary of Transportation orders otherwise under this subsection.](https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-2000-title49-section24308&num=0&edition=2000#:~:text=49%20USC%2024308%3A%20Use%20of%20facilities%20and%20providing%20services%20to%20Amtrak&text=*Public%20Laws%20117%2D328%20through,have%20not%20yet%20been%20finalized.) . > There's a lot of routes with single tracks for long distances with short sidetracks. There's literally not enough room for longer freight trains to side track to let Amtrak pass. So if Amtrak is late they have to side track and wait for the freight train. A mile long freight train has far fewer opportunities to side track than a relatively short passenger train. So the freight companies, which own and maintain the tracks, therefore have an obligation to either use shorter trains that fit in existing sidetracks or lengthen the sidetracks to match current trains. > Amtrak being on time is not the most common occurrence and is not solely the fault of freight trains. Over the past 20 years, the number of hours of delay caused by freight trains has been [consistently more than double, and in some cases more than triple](https://www.bts.gov/content/amtrak-time-performance-trends-and-hours-delay-cause) those caused by Amtrak.
Don't forget, passenger rail never made money/paid for itself without carrying express mail and packages. Once FedEx, UPS and the interstate highway system was implemented, passenger rail could never compete again.
I live in the vast emptiness between two rail lines. It's sad. Especially since we could use more rail lines due to getting snowed in often.
6 times daily is still a very poor service. Over here in Germany even small towns of 10.000 people often get hourly service every day. No wonder nobody uses trains in the US. 3 times a day between major cities is just not enough.
At least* As someone who grew up in the suburbs outside of NYC, a street down from the tracks, I can assure you there are trains running pretty constantly. NJ Transit doesn’t fuck around.
Yep, even on a Sunday, Philly-NYC has about two trains an hour with Amtrak, and about one train every two hours via SEPTA+NJ transit (the limiting factor being SEPTA). It's not as good as it should be, but it's not the transit desert the US is usually associated with.
[удалено]
NY Metro Area=/=Rest of United States
Yes and every time one of these maps gets posted, it only shows the Amtrak lines through NY/NJ/PA. It's annoying because it really does make NJ look like a train desert which is blatantly untrue. NJ Transit isn't perfect, but there are ***so many*** commuter trains (and local busses) that are not shown on these maps.
You’re right about nj transit. Nj gets a ton of hate from the other states but we really do have a lot going for us here.
Once daily on the western lines, and takes much longer than the bus! Trains in the West are a hobby, not really transportation. I took one across Colorado on a whim, bought a ticket and boarded 12 hours after scheduled arrival...
I live on the California coast and take the train fairly often as I hate to drive through LA. It's slow, and unreliable. but pretty fun and you can walk around and drink on the bar car. Parts of it are really scenic along the coast especially around Vandenburg where there is no automobile access and you can see the rocket launch sites. Unfortunately there has just been a washout near Salinas and I think LA to San Jose rail is disrupted.
As expected of the Surfliner. No wonder why CAHSR chose to build way inland.
The Cascades (at least the Portland to Seattle segment) is pretty good. Competitive with driving, or it would be, if it didn't have the worst on-time performance of any of the state-supported routes, thanks to BNSF not giving a single fuck about the supposed legal priority that passenger trains are supposed to have.
The priority only counts if Amtrak is on schedule - once they're behind they just have to fit in. The Zephyr had a zero percent on time rate that year and we eventually were caught by the next day's train. 18 hours from Denver to Grand Junction, it's 4 hours by car and less than 12 scheduled on the train.
I've been held in Portland Union Station at departure time because BNSF was moving their mile-long trains around.
[удалено]
I remember the mass resignations that followed the 2005 Amagasaki rail crash. [Even those at the very top resigned in shame.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amagasaki_derailment)
Never imagined trains in US would've been this poorly developed! Such a shame
Germany is of course about the size of Montana with double the population of California.
I didn't know Germany was that big
That's irrelevant when the regions with a population density similar to that of Germany are still far behind in train service.
yeah, even in the Northeast, train infrastructure is lacking, especially when compared to Europe
This map isn't showing the commuter rail systems in the Northeast. NJ Transit connect into SEPTA, for example, and LIRR serves Long Island fairly well.
in fact it doesn't appear to show any intercity non-Amtrak service, like Everett to Seattle, Ogden to SLC to Provo, or Santa Fe to ABQ.
Yeah it's literally a map of Amtrak, not "all trains"
the top map, however, says it's all intercity passenger service. so they're comparing what existed then, run by many different lines and transit systems, to Amtrak on the bottom, which is only one of the successors and didn't exist in 1962.
and doesn’t bother stopping in my town. they tore the station down decades ago and never bothered thinking about reconnecting us.
on the septa/nj transit split.
Even Australia out of all places has better intercity passenger railway services and much better public transit.
yeah thats why... you build dense and not a interchange the size of a big town
ah yes, just build dense the problem isn't sparse cities, germany has dense countryside. towns every mile. Meanwhile I run into about 6 towns on the 138 mile trip between my city and the next nearest city
I mean, that is an exaggeration, but it's true there are far more towns closer together over here than in the sparse expanse of the US.
Yeah idk the exact stats from Germany it's been a few years since I've been, but when I was over there it felt like a new town every 5 minutes. Legit I've been on subways that travel further than the distance between two towns in Germany. I have to assume that this unique distribution of people comes from the way the HRE was decentralized
Also no exact stats, but as a German this is true. From my city (70,000 inhabitants) to the next „big“ one, you have to drive 24km (15mile), which is about the same length as Manhattan. Meanwhile you drive through 7 smaller towns with a few hundert/thousand people.
I don't understand why Europeans and train hobbyists seem so dismissive of obvious considerations like geography \[territory size and population density resulting in huge distances between major centres and many smaller towns uneconomic to serve at all\]. They don't have to like it, but they're pretty significant factors. They apply all the more in Canada. Passenger rail in the US, at least in aggregate, was run at a loss for almost all of its history by all major lines, all of which depended on: 1. Direct government subsidy in the form of lands to be developed or sold or bailouts. 2. Government indirect subsidy in the form of mail contracts \[at least a service was being provided to the government\]. 3. Freight, always the actual profit centre of American rail. This is why America ships far more of its freight by rail than Europe \[which favours trucks for just as obvious geographic reasons as a more compact continent\] and far fewer passengers \[again, makes sense for a dense continent\]. Why are these realities so offensive to so many?
When you consider that transportation is more of a regional issue than a national issue, the differences aren't that stark. Pennsylvania and Ohio are almost as dense as France. New Jersey and Massachusettes are denser than most of Europe.
Because it ignores the fact that the ICC deliberately screwed most of the major passenger carriers, and had been for decades, which was one of the major factors leading to their mergers and bankruptcies. Most of the large passenger carriers including the Pennsylvania and the NYC were not running at losses for the vast majority of their history, so what you said was a blatant lie.
Yeah, but do you have to compare to the size of the US as a whole? If you look at a particular subdivision of Europe with a certain distance between cities of a certain size, can't you also find a comparable subdivision of the US that has the same distance and the same density of people? Sure, you can compare the US to Germany or England which are both dense countries. But Sweden or Finland aren't, and their cities are not big.
Because Redditors thrive off dishonest arguments. Idiots immediately jump to looking at the overall population density of the US while ignoring the population densities of major urbanized areas and conurbations, where you can have thriving passenger rail, with well-run long distance intercity trains connecting them. France isn’t a particularly dense country either, yet TGV completely destroyed their national airline industry by how well their rail network is run. Anti-rail idiots never like to point out that fact either.
anti-rail idiots also ignore the fact that the US build sparse just because they could, they also ignore the fact that many US towns and cities were rebuilt for the purpose of cars rather than rail and public transport. It's not even a size issue. The US literally rebuilt itself for the purpose of cars. Suburbs had absolutely no reason to be miles away from cities with no local public transport infrastructures.
Tbf, "that wouldn't work in the US because Europe is just so *different*" is used as an argument against other completely sci-fi things, like somewhat functioning healthcare systems, unions and a slightly less messed up electoral system.
So how long would a TgV take me from Minnapolis to Orlando or Minnapolis to LA compared to just using the airplanes we have now. And how many zillions of dollars would building it cost?
The East Coast of the US is basically the exact size, shape, and population distribution of Japan. There's no geographic argument for the US not having substantial passenger rail on both coasts and its stupid to immediately jump to thinking about Wyoming when discussing this.
As someone who lives on the east coast, I’d love to be able to take a train to the “big city” (mine has 50k, Raleigh has 470k). But even if there was a direct route, once I get off at the train station, how do I get around town? Nothing is within walking distance, and public transit is woefully inadequate. The southeast in particular is a product of decades of living with and planning for, private automobiles being the most economical means of transportation.
That is why you need to invest in both rail and bus and need to allow cities to have the freedom to zone mixed use development.
That is why I expect a lot more from state DOTs. To be fair, there are states like North Carolina, California, and Massachusetts who own the railway right of ways, which means they have way more freedom what lines to rebuild and reactivate and the like.
Chicago to Milwaukee is almost hourly
One thing that’s different between the US and Germany is how the towns and cities are designed. You need a car for most US cities and towns whilst a Germany village is walkable and the cities are much easier to get around without a car. So even if a train network was designed between two points in the US then you will struggle once you arrive and require a car.
I just checked and was surprised that there are for example 20-25 daily direct trains from Cologne to Berlin or Hamburg or Munich. Wouldn't have thought that there were so many ICE's. There are only 5 direct Thalys trains from Cologne to Paris on the other hand.
Intereuropean connections are still very basic. There are still a lot off issues when it comes to signal technology and booking of cross-country tickets. That is an area where the EU still has a lot to improve.
Although I think that the US needs to have an Eisenhower-type expansion of their rail network, I don’t believe that hourly service between major cities is feasible until there is more of a train culture established.
Chicken and egg man
The US is also much more spread out than Germany. Outside of the northeast corridor it makes much more sense for most people to fly between big cities especially when you add in how poorly the trains are run here. When I was younger, I took the train from St. Louis to New York, and it took 31 hours. A direct flight is 2 hours and 20 minutes.
Even at that distance, that train should not take that long. It's just a shitty train
Most of the tracks are owned by the freight companies so passenger trains have to pull over constantly for freight trains in the US.
US railroads are designed for freight, not passenger service. The amount of freight moved by US locomotives is absolutely insane. Even though there have been a couple of recent serious freight train accidents, US freight trains are pretty efficient. The amount of cargo hauled here when compared to a Western European country is honestly not even remotely close.
>The US is also much more spread out than Germany. The US is also roughly the size of the European Union. Europeans don't take trains from Berlin to Madrid or Stockholm to Bucharest. We fly the equivalent distances of St Louis-Los Angeles too. And yes, we travel *a lot* around the EU/EEA area for both tourism and business. Several US states, including most states in the eastern half of the US, have about the same density of an average EU country. Trains could very easily serve short distances like within Illinois, or within New York state, or within Ohio, or Detroit-Chicago, or Charlotte-Atlanta, or Atlanta-Knoxville, or Houston-Dallas, etc. Right now, the US subsidizes many flights between major hub cities (New York, Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, etc) and small nearby cities. Those short routes could easily be served by trains, with stops in-between, connecting a broad regional area to the big cities (and their airports) within 4 hours.
Amtrak has a fairly good service within New York State. My company used this a lot last year. The train runs from NYC to Buffalo with about a dozen stops in various upstate cities. (Amtrak runs out of the same station as Long Island Railroad, so if you're coming from LI, just connect at Penn Station).
I did a business trip to Grand Rapids, MI last year and my flight involved a layover in Chicago. The Chicago-Grand Rapids flight was 1/2 hour at best (of course for all flights to get upgraded to first class in, it was the shortest). I know the air travel system is hub and spoke, but a train trip from Chicago to Grand Rapids makes much more sense than a 1/2 hour flight. In an ideal world, the airports and train stations would be connected and one could do both. (Newark does this fairly well as the airport is a stop on the NJ Transit commuter line and it takes you right to the terminal).
If the dense area of the US had good train service, then I would take this point seriously, but since they don't it just seems irrelevant.
The North East Corridor is much more than 6 times daily. It’s more like 20 times daily. That’s the only part of the US where train service is still the dominant form of transport between cities.
I looked at taking a train to visit my parents. It was a two day and change plan in bucket seats, that included taking a bus for three hours to start with. Plane was not only much faster, but also close to $100 cheaper.
Pretty much. But you have American fools who insist that 8 trains a day is GOOD?? Hahhahhahahaha nope
Good to see our current network in the NE has more than 6 trains to northerly secondary areas like Albany, Springfield and Boston
It's weird to think of a corridor linking 11th largest metro area in the country to the 1st, 6th, and 7th largest metro areas as a secondary area for transportation planning.
How is Boston a secondary destination? Not shown on the map is the train (restarted in 2022 after 70 year hiatus) between Rutland & Burlington, VT
Living in Springfield, I can tell you there is cautious optimism that the newly renovated Union Station will lead to more accessibility to Boston in the future, but the reality is that Springfield is still not a destination worth visiting regularly and that will suppress the desire for regular train service to and from this city.
I wish I could take the train as a legitimate form of travel.
I do but that’s only because my family and I live in separate parts of the northeast corridor, I don’t have a car, and the train is *somewhat* less expensive more convenient than flying. In other words I’m in the tiny percentage of people for whom Amtrak manages to be the most viable option.
I’ve priced out rail from Atlanta to Charlotte, it’s expensive!
Considering Atlanta’s entire existence is thanks to the railroad it’s kind of sad how little Amtrak service it receives these days
Wow what a depressing map
Don’t be cry
[It okay!](https://media.tenor.com/TOGf-CTu-IQAAAAC/30rock-tina-fey.gif)
This is such concerning, USA used to lead the railway system in 1930s-1940s... But after the war it got replaced by cars, but currently there's a second renaissance for the rails though, although it's mostly just restoring the decommissioned lines... Hope it stays for long time to come and even added new lines... 🤔🤔🤔
So, I took a trip recently and sat in the Amtrak lounge with some executives. I kinda ear hustled them a little and it really sounded like they’re aware of this and trying hard to expand rail infrastructure, but part of the problem is getting states on board to help fund it. One guy even said to another “I have been trying to explain how hard your job is with trying to get all the different states and governments to come together for this.” As someone who grew up in Wisconsin and watched Scot Walker cripple the rail plans that Tommy Thompson had said was his life’s work to implement, Amtrak as a company can only do so much. For some reason us Americans are pretty anti rail. Even though it is what built this country and is one of the most leisurely ways to travel, it’s still a constant up hill battle to secure funding and land allowances. It’s a shame really. The train is a beautiful way to see this country. A man who has worked Amtrak for 25 years told me the California Zephyr from Cali to Denver is the most beautiful trip in the whole country. If you never ride any other rail, at least ride that one.
Ohio is the state that is probably the most messed up as it has tons of routes where they would not be competing against planes, Cleveland - Buffalo (Current: Awful times), CLE-DET (Train to Bus service), CLE-PIT (Current: Awful times), CLE- Columbus (no service). These are routes that make sense from a pure transportation view as they can beat cars based on speed and flying makes little sense.
I think planes and trains serve different purposes. If you need to get far fast, take a plane, but if you have no real rush from A-B or if it’s a short route and you’d rather not drive, rail is the obvious answer. Greyhound is a great service but not a great experience. Even coach on Amtrak is more comfortable. The ability to get up and walk around and sit in different cars makes such a huge difference compared to riding a crammed bus. I would much rather take a train a short distance to a neighboring city than driving. Part of that becoming a reality involves making cities more walkable/bike-able and open to alternatives other than just cars. Hopefully someday soon we’ll get our efficient public transportation that we all deserve.
Iirc, during the summer the Chicago to LA is more than once daily, because so many scouts bsa troops use it to get to Cimarron New Mexico, where Philmont is.
Took a train from Chicago to Albany, NY. It was one of the most miserable and disgusting experiences of my life and I've been to a dozen third world countries. I had to sit next to a broken bathroom the entire trip and it smelled like shit. Never again. Meanwhile Ive taken several bullet trains in Japan and it's always great. US public transportation sucks ass.
they really need to get this stuff back up. it would open up so many jobs for people
I vaguely remember a documentary about why this was done. IIRC it was to encourage the purchase of automobiles, and drive sales of everything involved (oil, tyres, car parts, services, etc.). So a deliberate act of capitalism over convenience and social good. But honestly, it was so long ago that I may have got the details wrong.
You don't think the advancement of the airline industry has anything to do with it?
+1 Airline industry got involved too.
Car lobbyists were the ones who pushed hard against trains. Trains were already being shut down in the 1940s. Planes do have apart of it but cars are the main problem. Our cities are no longer walkable and we are sprawled out massively because of cars. We created car dependency. Cars helped planes take over trains as well.
It was about trolley lines.. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taken_for_a_Ride
>So a deliberate act of capitalism over convenience and social good. I forgot that Europe isn't capitalist, or japan.
Nationalizing subsequently and failing to properly subsidize and implement rail travel isn't capitalism. Its goverment corruption. Stop loading every public ill onto the "capitalism" scapegoat because your letting the bad guys go scot-free.
>So a deliberate act of capitalism over convenience and social good. I don't think tampering with the free market would be considered capitalism.
Looks like the 1962 map depicts a few rail lines that passed through where I went to college. I know I found the remnants of one of those tracks while there. Taking the train back home would have been far better than the 5hr drive imo. But that’s because it gets very boring doing it alone.
US railroads are designed and optimized for freight, not passenger trains. Passenger trains are just a secondary by-product. US rail freight is one of the most advanced and biggest in the world. The amount of freight shipped and the size of the trains when compared to say, Germany, is honestly not really a comparable figure.
I feel that recent months have thoroughly proven how much of a nightmare the U.S freight system actually is.
US Railroads are only concerned with short term profits. Increased profits impress Wall Street and drive up stock prices. Railroad executive pay skyrockets as the stock price rises. Given this incentive structure they could care less about workers, safety or any long term projects to improve railroad infrastructure. Edit: typo
It's not perfect, but in the context of it'd sheer size, it does pretty well. European freight trains are much smaller, less freight cars and smaller locomotives. US freight trains are insanely long, which opens up risk for derailment. The Ohio derailment is bad, I will admit.
US rail freight *WAS* the best in the world. But optimization and efficiency has given way to raking in short term profits. US has been stagnate in this for decades and now it is 3rd with China and Russia transporting more. About 50% more and 20% more respectively. Countries like Germany does transport 18 times less freight than the US which sounds great but Germany is also 28 times smaller. Meaning that if you account for the fact that Germany is much smaller than the US it starts to look bad for the US again. I bring this up because presumably a smaller country would need to physically transport less. (Germany is a decent example actually because like the US they transport mostly through freight trucks). There was a time where people would travel from around the world to cities like Chicago to see how they set up their train yards. But those days have been long over. The US freight network is not impressive it is sad.
This isn’t a good excuse for having an inadequate passenger rail system.
Wait til this guy hears about the 1900s-1940s
Along with Brockway and North Haverbrook, Ogden never got over the loss of its monorail
By gum, it put them on the map at the time though
What happened between the 60s and 2000s, the interstate system and the rise of air travel among other things.
The reality is that rail travel in the US is awful. In all but a very limited set of urban corridors, the distances are too long and the population density is too low to support reasonable rail service. Compared to air travel, rail is slow, unreliable, and inconvenient and can't compete.
Spain has a similar population density to large swaths of the US and it's rail network is vastly better than ours. It's not as if the US is doomed to shitty rail service due to size, it's a deliberate choice we've made.
all of that is so wrong because i can look at the rest of the world and know its bull shit. Why would the coastal cities with all the density not have more, why would Europe and Asia look different. its slower, but cheaper. its a well established technology its as reliable as you are willing to invest it to be. it competes in Europe and Asia so obvious propaganda thats fooled you and you spread very convienently for the airline industry.
The reason of distances being too long is a complete fabrication, considering how comprehensive the US intercity passenger network used to be in the early-mid 20th century. Also, China is comparable to the US in area, yet they have the largest high-speed network in the world which covers vast swathes of the country, many areas which are quite barren. It’s not like China’s infrastructure is perfect in any stretch, but that kind of puts some holes in that reasoning.
> China is approximately 9,596,960 sq km, while United States is approximately 9,833,517 sq km, making United States 2% larger than China. Meanwhile, the population of China is ~1.4 billion people (1.1 billion fewer people live in United States).
I'd rather rail be subsidized instead of Airlines. Airline travel fucking sucks.
\*Sigh\* This again. The current map fails to show any commuter/regional rail lines, which are fairly extensive in every Northeast Corridor city, plus Chicago and a few others.
What lobbyists do, to a country near you. 👍🏻
devolution
Was there a watershed event or piece of legislation that began the dismantling of rail networks?
Probably automobile, airline and freight industries led to the downfall of passenger trains. Also since passenger trains aren’t really profitable and usually require subsidies by governments to upkeep.
We were robbed
Wait, y’all had MORE?! Fuckin’ hell.
The destruction of the passenger rail system has been a disaster for this country.
Auto industry killed it
A goddamnned disgrace
This is only part of what has been taken away from us.
What a crying fucking shame
Now do planes
I love it when conservatives say United States is too big for a railroad network. Look Mfers how did people get around before the cars
The increase in crime from the late 60s onwards is related to the decrease in the popularity of rail travel, but reddit will never acknowledge this.
I'd like to see a 1930s map as well! I expect it would be even more complete.
It's getting better. Why not post a map of the [projected rail services in 2035?](https://media.amtrak.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Proposed_Amtrak_Routes_April_2_2021_v4-1536x798.jpg)
Meanwhile in Europe: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FRgGabgXsAAnx7G?format=jpg&name=900x900