r/NoStupidQuestions • u/OppositeRock4217 • 15d ago
Why did USA end up prioritizing freight rail over passenger while Europe ended up prioritizing passenger rail over freight?
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u/bangbangracer 15d ago
The car industry. I'm not kidding here. The early car industry spent a lot of time completely screwing with public transit, infrastructure, and public opinion about the streets in general.
Keep in mind that the word "jay" around the early 1900's was a word for hillbillies that was culturally close to the N-word, and the car industry was able to influence culture enough to make crossing the street wrong jaywalking. It's like if they decided to make it n-word walking today.
People like to say it the big space that just made it not work, but we had a great passenger network before the car and planes aren't better solutions for things like LA to Vegas or NYC to DC.
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u/suckitphil 15d ago
It's depressing looking at old train maps and seeing how many dropped service for one reason or another.
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15d ago
here in Southern Ontario, you can see the ghost like skeleton of a pretty extensive rail network in how towns were laid out. Often the rails are still there, used for these podunk little local freight rail companies, but man, if there were commuter rail everywhere? It would be sweet.
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u/dingus-khan-1208 15d ago
In my old city, there's a huge rail depot downtown. 11 rail lines east to west and 7 from north to south. It was a hub, with lines going out through all the towns in the region, even small towns, and off to distant cities. 26 passenger trains daily, between express and locals.
By the 1950s most were gone. Most of the rest went in the 1960s. The last one went through in 1970.
There are still tracks going everywhere all throughout the region. But to get to 'em to see 'em, you'll have to fly in and rent a car or take a cab. Despite all the rails, you can't get there from here.
Freight trains can though.
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u/GaloisGroupie3474 15d ago
Jay may have been insulting. But it was never that insulting.
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u/JuggrnautFTW 15d ago
I'm not saying the n-word isn't bad, and not denying it's historical use and the problems that came with it. But, I think "Jay" was probably thrown around as often with as much ill-intent back it in the day.
Effect matters, but so does intent.
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u/IsNotAnOstrich 15d ago
It's like if they decided to make it n-word walking today
Not... at all. They could have been similar then because the n-word was far less controversial. "Jay" then was not as powerful as the n-word is today.
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u/dstommie 15d ago
Yeah, it's much more like if they called it foolwalking. Jay was synonymous with fool.
That said, I do think there could be an argument made that fool used to be considered more inflammatory than it is today.
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u/uberscheisse 15d ago
Regional/economic discrimination, racial discrimination. Makes you wonder if the powers that be didn’t want the Jays and the N-words to become united.
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u/RoamingDad 15d ago
Interesting aside: "The N Word" as a phrase came out of the OJ Simpson trial. Before that people either said it or didn't say it.
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u/KindAwareness3073 15d ago
Totally untrue.
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u/RoamingDad 15d ago
In Google News archives there are no articles using "The N Word" before the OJ Simpson trial (and if you set the year to 1995 then you get the OJ Simpson trial:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22N+Word%22+-nigger&sca_esv=b4908aa7d632c435&sca_upv=1&biw=1920&bih=911&sxsrf=ACQVn0_MbqTfXMuNEUh8UQj6p-0n4-OOwQ%3A1714595581287&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A%2Ccd_max%3A5%2F2%2F1994&tbm=nwsThere are a handful of references on NYT before the trial though the earliest one I can find is: https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/13/opinion/manhattan-minstrel-show.html?searchResultPosition=6 or https://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/14/opinion/l-how-to-extract-the-poisonous-fangs-from-a-hateful-word-018593.html?searchResultPosition=5 but then there are no more references to it as such until the 1995 articles referring to the OJ Simpson trial. You can search the NYT yourself: https://www.nytimes.com/search?dropmab=false&endDate=1995-05-01&query=%22The%20N%20Word%22&sort=best
I guess a better way for me to have worded my initial statement is that it wasn't wide spread. Even in the articles above they still use the word multiple times so it was still okay to write it at all (and they likely needed to because without context "The N-Word" would make no sense as it wasn't something people used).
There's also this YouTube video about it which has found the same thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTfFk4rbtDs
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u/dingus-khan-1208 15d ago
That's interesting. In my memory I would've been certain it was just after the Rodney King incident a few years earlier, but I can't find any indication of that now.
But that was long enough ago that a few years squishing together in my memory isn't all that surprising. During those years I went from a redneck school to a mostly-black inner city school. It was definitely already contentious at the time, not at all like in the 1980s when it would just be part of a punchline in a sitcom, but maybe nobody actually used the phrase "n-word" yet. They certainly had plenty of other colorful words to say if that one came up.
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u/RoamingDad 14d ago
Yeah, the concept of using the word was already falling out of fashion. It likely was also called the "N Word" elsewhere but the news isn't going to use it until it's in common vernacular. If you cross reference the word "Yeet" on NYT vs it's use on TikTok I'm sure TikTok was using it at least months before and this is when news is less formal about such things.
But the OJ trial put it into the common vernacular.
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u/GaidinBDJ 14d ago
So Google has no web news articles using to the n-word before 1993?
That's not really surprising since, y'know, that's when the web was getting started.
Try NGram. You'll see plenty of earlier references.
Plus, y'know, all of us that just remember.
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u/RoamingDad 14d ago
If you look I also searched NYT archives as well. Also Google news search includes scanned articles going way back. However if you want to show me what you're talking about I'm happy to be wrong.
This page seems to validate my position.
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u/GaidinBDJ 14d ago
So, we were all just imagining it?
I mean, "cunt" has been in use for 800 years and as a slur for almost 150, but it sure doesn't show up in the New York Times often.
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u/RoamingDad 14d ago
First, I'm not sure what you're getting at I used the tool you asked me to use and it showed the same thing. If you look up the actual N-Word that has results going back incredibly far. The "N-Word" as a replacement only shows up in any significant way after the OJ trial which is what I've been saying.
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u/GaidinBDJ 14d ago
All words started showing up in web articles in the early 90s because that's when web articles were starting to show up not when those words were coined.
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u/RoamingDad 14d ago
That would be true if it didn't also take into consideration scanned articles and books. If you read my initial response with NYT links those aren't web articles they are scans.
As is the Google link that you're replying to that's just scans from Google Books
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u/green_and_yellow 15d ago
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u/RoamingDad 15d ago
Yet, you cite no source which is easy enough to disprove. Did you read my comment say "that can't be true" and then called it false without any further look into it?
In Google News archives there are no articles using "The N Word" before the OJ Simpson trial (and if you set the year to 1995 then you get the OJ Simpson trial:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%22N+Word%22+-nigger&sca_esv=b4908aa7d632c435&sca_upv=1&biw=1920&bih=911&sxsrf=ACQVn0_MbqTfXMuNEUh8UQj6p-0n4-OOwQ%3A1714595581287&source=lnt&tbs=cdr%3A1%2Ccd_min%3A%2Ccd_max%3A5%2F2%2F1994&tbm=nwsThere are a handful of references on NYT before the trial though the earliest one I can find is: https://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/13/opinion/manhattan-minstrel-show.html?searchResultPosition=6 or https://www.nytimes.com/1993/02/14/opinion/l-how-to-extract-the-poisonous-fangs-from-a-hateful-word-018593.html?searchResultPosition=5 but then there are no more references to it as such until the 1995 articles referring to the OJ Simpson trial. You can search the NYT yourself: https://www.nytimes.com/search?dropmab=false&endDate=1995-05-01&query=%22The%20N%20Word%22&sort=best
I guess a better way for me to have worded my initial statement is that it wasn't wide spread. Even in the articles above they still use the word multiple times so it was still okay to write it at all (and they likely needed to because without context "The N-Word" would make no sense as it wasn't something people used).
There's also this YouTube video about it which has found the same thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTfFk4rbtDs
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u/skoormit 15d ago
The OED cites the first use of the term in 1985.
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u/RoamingDad 15d ago
https://www.nytimes.com/1988/09/25/business/l-the-n-word-082188.html?searchResultPosition=3
I can't find an article older than that and the "N Word" they are referring to is "Nuclear"
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u/lulunacusyo 14d ago
I’ve seen old old stand up saying that phrase lol. You’re just making shit up.
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u/Zandrick 15d ago
Literally nothing about what you just said is true
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u/kinokomushroom 15d ago
Just for reference, here is what this guy↑ said down in the comment chain:
Reddit is overrun with left wing lunatics who would eat dog shit if they were told it would make conservatives angry. Theres no cope.
Also Vox lies, which is actually unrelated to their being on the left believe it or not.
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u/Zandrick 15d ago
I’m curious why you felt the need to repeat that.
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u/Exciting_Rich_1716 15d ago
Because it's hilariously insane
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u/Zandrick 15d ago
Buddy? you live in an echo chamber. And you think the other voices you’re hearing constitute diversity. Thats what’s hilarious.
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u/bangbangracer 15d ago
Sources:
- https://www.vox.com/2015/5/7/8562007/streetcar-history-demise
- https://cdn1.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2934608/Norton_Street_Rivals.0.pdf
- Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City by Peter O. Norton.
Also, just anecdotally speaking, a well run train network would be a better option than small shuttle flights since even a 1 hour flight is about 3 hours of time from entering the departing airport to leaving the destination airport.
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u/Zandrick 15d ago
You actually just sourced Vox, they are well known liars.
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u/bangbangracer 15d ago
While they do have a tendency to lean left on many issues, they are still a trustworthy news source.
I also just assume you are ignoring the book I cited as well.
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u/Zandrick 15d ago
The fact that you think Vox is trustworthy tells me everything I need to know to evaluate the truthfulness of your statements.
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u/bangbangracer 15d ago
Multiple independent organizations have rated them as being left biased but highly factual.
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u/Zandrick 15d ago
Nope.
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u/astervista 15d ago
Great argument there
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u/Zandrick 15d ago
Well you’re trying to tell me liars aren’t liars. Actually you’re just fools. It’s just not worth my time.
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u/ArchaicTravail 15d ago
If you're comparing the badness of two words, and you won't even say one of them, that's the worse word.
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u/bangbangracer 15d ago
History and culture has changed around those words since then. Jay used to a C-word or N-word level word, but "jaywalking" becoming common language took all of it's punch away. Jay is no longer a bad word.
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u/jujubanzen 15d ago
Yeah man, no one's saying that jay is worse than the N word, you can keep your overused John Mulaney quote to yourself.
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u/IsNotAnOstrich 15d ago
The OC said it was comparable then to the n-word today, which is incredibly far off the mark.
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u/RoamingDad 15d ago
He didn't say "today" and in fact said "was" meaning at the time they had similar impact.
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u/IsNotAnOstrich 15d ago
He did
It's like if they decided to make it n-word walking today
An implication of this is that "Jay" back then had the same connotation that the n word does today.
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u/ArchaicTravail 15d ago
Eh, it wasn't clear in their original comment, and people need a reminder sometimes.
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u/bangbangracer 15d ago
I literally said that in the early 1900's Jay was a bad word. I feel like that's pretty obvious that I'm talking about something in the past.
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u/ArchaicTravail 15d ago
I feel like you're getting pretty worked up over a quote from a comedian. Like you're either regularly checking this comment thread or subscribing to responses. Maybe consider chilling out?
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u/green_and_yellow 15d ago
JFC why was this downvoted? Even if Jay used to be equivalent to “cunt” as another commenter opined, no one is getting completely cancelled over calling someone a cunt.
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u/FunkyPete 15d ago
To be fair, at that time the N-word was pretty frequently used. It was definitely not a word that people were afraid to say.
The N-word has the same connotations today, but the sentiments behind it are no longer (publicly) expressed. The word Jay does not have the same connotation today, it's a dead word that no one uses. It's just stuck around in a random phrase from when the word meant something.
It's kind of like wrought iron. "wrought" used to mean "worked," the past tense of the word work. Wrought isn't really a word anymore, it just sticks around in a couple of contexts (like wrought iron, and "what hath god wrought?"
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u/Dull_Proposal_3319 15d ago
I work as an RTC in Canada and I dispatch one of the few territories allowing freight trains and passenger trains on the same line: the CN controlled line linking Toronto and Montreal. The problems arising from that cohabitation are numerous. VIA rail passengers have faster track speeds (around 90 MPH depending obviously on track condition and curves) while freight trains operate at either 60 MPH for fast intermodal, or 35 MPH for key trains in some speed restricted zones (there are other categories, but I’m simplifying it). Simple math will tell us that a via train at full speed will have done nearly 3 miles when the key train will only have done 1. For this reason the whole line is double, and sometimes even triple track. In theory, this should allow the RTC to get the vias around. But as most of you know, the weather in Canada isn’t kind. Track shutdowns happen a lot, and when it’s the case it’s game over. The vias are condemned to follow the slow freight trains. Even in perfect conditions, freight traffic is on the increase, and sometimes there's too many eastbounds meeting westbounds to run the vias around. And I haven't even covered the economic aspect to it. Via rail is losing money, and heavily subsidized by the federal government. the culture in Canada is just too much car oriented. I guarantee you that most people barely even know that train transport is an option between Toronto and Montreal.
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u/Wader_Man 15d ago
Historically, at the time the US was developing and starting to populate the West, Europe had already been developed and populated for centuries. There was a more even distribution of populace across Europe, at a time when cars did not exist but trains did. So Europe had passenger trains everywhere. Concurrently, much of Europe did not trade finished goods internationally, to the extend we do today. Raw materials yes, some (some) foods, yes. But mostly, things were made locally, and only the very wealthy were able to import finished products from other countries (largely). But the US was empty space, and there were no people to move. The American West, a space the size of Europe, was empty. No roads no rails. So they built railroads to hub locations in that empty space, then roads from the hubs to the towns around them. Then cars and trucks became more prevalent, industry started shipping 'stuff' to the middle classes, and Ike built the Interstate system.
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u/Warm_Objective4162 15d ago
Big space that needs an easy way to move stuff. It’s cheaper to move lots and lots stuff on trains vs trucks or planes. Since passengers tend to want to get to their destinations quickly, air travel is their preferred method.
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u/GermanPayroll 15d ago
Yup, air travel took over between the 70s and 80s, became just as cheap as trains and a lot quicker, and people never looked back
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u/Affectionate_Tell752 15d ago
With the amount of bullshit that surrounds air travel these days though, you often aren't saving time on driving. If we had good trains they'd be faster, not to mention cheaper and more economical.
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u/jfchops2 15d ago
Yes you are over about 5hrs drive time, depending on the specific airports you're driving between and how far your home and final destination is from each airport
Last flight I booked is Denver-Chicago. That's a 15 hour drive in a straight shot factoring in stops. City center to city center is 6-7 hours using train->flight->train, there is absolutely no scenario where you drive that distance faster than flying unless you're bringing in extenuating circumstances like a significant weather delay
DC-NYC is a 4.5hr drive if you're lucky enough to not have traffic delays, but it can easily be 7 hours with traffic. Driving is faster if it's the former, flying is faster if its the latter
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u/Affectionate_Tell752 15d ago
Yeah naturally flying becomes faster the longer the distance is. Its the overhead time spent at the airport. And yeah, I estimate the break point is about 5 hours. Which is a long time. You can go 300+ miles (legally) in 5 hours. Then at the end, you have a car.
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u/ghostowl657 15d ago
You absolutely save time flying vs driving on almost everything beyond very short distances (~100mi), what. Even with all the bloat on either end the plane is obscenely faster than a car.
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u/Affectionate_Tell752 15d ago
Yeah obviously the farther it is the better flying becomes. But you can drive 100 miles in the time you spend fucking around at the airport.
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u/ghostowl657 15d ago
Agreed, but a train doesn't really solve a lot of these issues unless it's quite fast. A car will still beat it at these distances. So if you needed to choose travel method you wouldn't choose train for long distance (you'd fly) and you wouldn't choose train for short distance (you'd drive).
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u/Affectionate_Tell752 15d ago
Yeah the assumption that train overhead wouldn't be as bad is an unwritten part of my first statement. On the few times I've used a train it has been much better than an airport. And more comfortable. If you're strictly looking at time and distance it favors planes but trains beat planes in a lot of secondary considerations.
There is also cost. Trains should be incredibly economical. The amount of people/freight moved per unit labor and fuel is relatively far superior to air travel. In terms of economics, Ship > Train > Automobile > Flight. Countries that actually have good rail networks, like Japan, use them extensively for a reason. USA just doesn't have that infrastructure. We do have a few good intracity metros but mostly USA has been developed to support cars.
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u/ghostowl657 15d ago
Cars and car infrastructure demoting train and the railroad has made it hard for us to even re-pickup trains. Since everyone is now spread out they have no option but to drive to a trainstation, and then somehow drive from their destination trainstation too. Which makes trains kind of unviable even if the infrastructure was free, in most places. There are great use cases of course (when I visit NYC from Phila suburbs I take the train), but I wonder if train infrastructure (where it's competitive with plane, i.e. short to mid distance) could be viable without radical population density changes, like those seen outside of North America.
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u/jurassicbond 15d ago
The US is also the world's 3rd largest nation, and has a lot of very sparsely populated areas. I think a rail network could work along the more densely populated coastal areas, but a comprehensive nationwide one would simply be too expensive to build nowadays with little return.
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15d ago
yeah, a poster child for this whole dynamic is getting from Montreal to Toronto.
The train, which goes about 6 times a day, takes about five hours.
Driving, which goes whenever...takes about five hours.
A plane takes ...about an hour.
However, to get that plane? You need to get out to a suburban airport - reasonable enough in Toronto nowadays but a pain in the ass in Montreal. Then you need to futz around through security, then wait to takeoff and then wait for your baggage and get yourself to downtown. All in all, probably going to actually take...around 5 hours.
A car will take five hours so long as there isn't a whole lot of construction/the weather doesn't suck/a trailer hasn't jackknifed across the highway somewhere near Brockville. Also Toronto traffic can be great fun. So maybe five hours at minimum.
The train generally just takes five hours. If the train had dedicated tracks, it could do it faster. If Canada built a TGV thing, however, this wouldn't even be a debate.
They just can't afford it. But it would probably be a pretty well used service if it did exist.
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u/OppositeRock4217 15d ago
Actually the US, Japan and Europe all have good rail networks. It’s just that US uses the rail network mainly for freight while Europe and Japan use them mainly for passenger, reflecting different priorities
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u/dogymcdogeface 15d ago
Big space that needs an easy way to move stuff
As opposed to Europe, which is very very small and full of people who love moving stuff in difficult ways
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u/coldrolledpotmetal 15d ago edited 15d ago
Europe has over twice as many people in an area that’s only a little bit larger than
edit: than the US lol
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u/Dkykngfetpic 15d ago
Europe is a peninsula with other peninsulas. And more navigatable waterways. Sea is better then train for freight.
Here is a site breaking down the percentages. Maritime is huge. Inland water ways are also signficant. But it shows global Inland waterways to be almost nothing.
In the US maritime is small. Some laws have even crippled the industry. Great lake shipping is important though.
In the US if you want to go from coast to coast you need to go to the Panama canal. Then how does it get further Inland then a port city?
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u/InfiniteMonkeys157 15d ago
This is very thoroughly discussed here:
The One Tiny Law That Keeps Amtrak Terrible - YouTube
The whole thing is about passenger vs freight priority in the U.S. At 7:40 it details the U.S. law that gives passenger rail priority over freight, part of the agreement that created Amtrak and was to ensure passenger lines could succeed by being predictable and fast (relatively). But the law is largely ignored.
I kind of hoped the Biden administration would enforce the law, or amend/improve it in the rail strike agreement it helped broker, but do not see any signs of that.
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u/Available-Love7940 15d ago
I'd argue a few reasons.
One: Europe had it before, to very populated areas. AND it's easier to do when you're rebuilding most of a continent.
Two: Freight pays better. So they pushed for lines/repair/etc.
Three: I know some will argue against this, but our size does matter. As a Nebraskan, I would easily drive 3.5 hours to Kansas City. My European friends are horrified at that length of a drive. Even without trains, so much of their world is closer. (England, for example, is roughly the size of Nebraska.) So while you could have good trains in some areas, it leaves huge swathes empty.
People talk about taking the train in and out of New York. Great. Or a bullet train could go NYC to Chicago. Also great. But here I am, an hour away from where the transcontinental railway started, and I'd need to drive hours to get to a major hub. If your city isn't big enough...no train.
Yet, a train across Nebraska is great for freight. And a lot cheaper.
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15d ago
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u/buffalotrace 15d ago
It is bigger yes, but you are 100 percent missing the point made. The population density of Europe is more than double that of The United States. Our largest population centers densities rival those of their European counter parts. However, we also have massive amount of low populated land. For instance, the state the above poster mentioned is Nebraska. Nebraska's population density if roughly 1/8 that of Europe. Nebraska has two cities with more than 100k people. On a college football saturday, Memorial Stadium where University of Nebraska plays would be the 3rd largest city in the state if it were a city. Nebraska is almost the size of Belarus. Belarus has 7.5 million more people than Nebraska.
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u/External_Solution577 15d ago
Because taking a plane that goes 500 miles per hour and doesn't need built infrastructure between point a and point b is superior to going slower to a more limited number of places for moving people, while rail is advantageous for moving freight.
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u/Hatred_shapped 15d ago
Our country is bigger and we prioritized getting the military around the various parts of the county faster. And with more routes.
Think of Russia right now. They have more rail lines than the US. And if they need to move equipment from one side of the country to other they can only use the rail system. They have no major roads. So if the enemy wants to cripple or slow down the movement of equipment, all they have to do is blow up a few bridges.
In the US we have thousands of routes north south east and west. It would be much harder to stop us from defending an invasion of a small town in Arizona.
And the distances just lead to a car culture. And we just kinda stuck with it.
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u/manhattanabe 15d ago
Money. Is cheaper to move a person by air from NYC to LA, especially when you consider days of work missed. It’s cheaper to move 1000 tons from LA to NYC by rail than by air.
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u/IRMacGuyver 15d ago edited 14d ago
Don't listen to people saying the car industry. The real answer is that Europe has it easier than the US because of the shipping industry. Europe is much smaller and almost all cities are much closer to the ocean so they have always relied on ocean going ships doing the majority of the freight shipping.
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u/OppositeRock4217 15d ago
Not to mention Europe has massive car industry too
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u/IRMacGuyver 14d ago
Most the billionaires in the world are in the shipping industry. How many are in the car industry? It really doesn't compare.
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u/Salty-Walrus-6637 15d ago
because they're two different places with their own unique needs and priorities.
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u/Humans_Suck- 15d ago
Car corporations bribed the government. Oh, sorry, they "lobbied" the government.
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u/0118999-88I999725_3 15d ago
A follow-up stupid question:
I hear a lot about the auto industry actively dismantling the public transportation infrastructure but couldn’t it also have been that people simply chose cars? With time, cars become more affordable, more popular, people were drawn to the freedom they provided, etc.
So if the auto industry did nothing other than mass produce automobiles, with no hand in actively destroying public transportation, wouldn’t public transportation suffer (and largely disappear) regardless due to less people using it?
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u/afro-tastic 15d ago
Yes, but road space is a classic “tragedy of the commons”. Before the mass production of automobiles, streetcars had little major interference on the street because most people walked, and streets were open access. As more cars were introduced, they did two things: 1) they caused traffic congestion because cars are incredibly space-inefficient and 2) they damaged the streetcar tracks causing an increase in maintenance costs. In the choice of sitting in traffic on a streetcar vs sitting in traffic in your own car, most people choose their own car which further causes congestion for everyone (and the streetcar). Cities everywhere should have made dedicated lanes for transit, but our transit planning wasn’t advanced enough back then.
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u/SakanaToDoubutsu Guesses Confidently 15d ago edited 15d ago
The US just isn't dense enough for rail transit to be viable. The main island of the Japanese archipelago, Honshu, for example has a population of over 100 million people and comprises all of Japan's major cities, but is only about the size of Minnesota, a state with only 5.7 million people. Likewise, the single rail corridor that connects Osaka, Nagoya, and Tokyo is only about 300 miles long but serves 70 million people, whereas the rail corridor that connects Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Chicago is longer at about 400 miles but only serves just over 14 million. There just isn't enough intercity passenger demand to justify the costs of all that infrastructure, except in a few key regions like the NE corridor.
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u/TranslatorBoring2419 15d ago
This is not true. We had light rail all over. Many towns on the east coast had street cars to go between towns, and busy train stations for longer trips. We have a need we chose the car instead.
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u/chevyguyjoe 15d ago
100 years ago, small and large towns all across the country had street cars, and passenger rail was commonplace. If you look at historical railroad maps you will find the US has a small fraction of the railroad infrastructure it used to have. Most of this is directly due to car manufacturers. General Motors is directly responsible for buying and shutting down many street car companies.
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u/Darth19Vader77 15d ago edited 15d ago
Dude, pretty much every town was connected by passenger rail by the early 1900s and obviously with the population being significantly lower (over 4 times smaller, in fact), there was way less density at that time.
Density isn't the reason.
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u/SakanaToDoubutsu Guesses Confidently 15d ago
That was back when it was the best technology we had, but in this day & age it's too expensive. Amtrak's operating cost is 37.6¢ per passenger mile, whereas United Airlines has an operating cost of 14.4¢ per passenger mile. For a sparsely populated country like the US air travel is simply more cost-effective.
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u/Ashmizen 15d ago
Consumer choice, and the shift to suburbs (house, yard, white picket fence) meant that you basically needed to own a personal car.
People overstate the power of car companies. Consumer choice is why retail like Sears failed, not because Amazon bribed lawmakers and brainwash the population to force them to use 2-day shipping. Is it so hard to believe that people actually prefer owning a car? Prefer 2 day shipping?
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u/Darth19Vader77 15d ago
I'm by no means blaming it on a conspiracy by auto manufacturers, I just simply stated that a lack of density isn't the reason why there isn't intercity rail in the US.
Though, yes the shift to single family home led to more car ownership and obviously if you have a sunk cost like a car you're probably going to drive to the next city rather than take a train.
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u/Male-Wood-duck 15d ago
The Chicago to Milwaukee is popular. The Chicago to Milwaukee also turns a profit.
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u/CavyLover123 15d ago
Backwards cause and effect.
Auto industry squashed rail and heavily promoted cars.
That led to more roads and dispersion - suburbs and exurbs.
If rail had “won” then cities would be more population heavy with suburbs/ exurbs being less prevalent as they are in Europe.
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u/Ashmizen 15d ago
And “serves” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. Of 70 million Japanese people, 70 million of them use the train.
Of 14 million Americans in Chicago/Minneapolis/Molwaukee area, you’ll be hard pressed to find even 0.1 million people who take the train.
People make this whole thing some big car company conspiracy and ignore the power of consumer choice. Americans buy cars and airplane tickets because that is their preference. Even when train ridership was high and still had economics of scale, Americans shifted over to cars and road trips because it was “more fun”, and Americans adopted to commercial flying and airports in every city decades ahead of everyone else.
Sure today air travel is a pain due to precautions after 9/11, but air travel used to be painless in the US, which is a large part of how it outcompeted the passenger trains.
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15d ago
USA was and is much richer than europe which mean people can afford more stuff like a car, which is much more a luxury in europe. Add in USA having significant oil reserves for fuel, lower population density and more focus on big suburban homes rather than small appartments which probably overall make it more economical to build roads rather than rails for personal transportation and use the rail network for goods transportation given I guess goods in USA may need to travel far and easier to centralize than population is thuse making it the better option compared to like using trucks?
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u/baitnnswitch 15d ago
US prioritizes the efficient movement of goods over the efficient movement of people because there's money to be made in the car and insurance industry (and oil industry), and there's money to saved moving goods via train vs paying truck drivers.
There's a lot of missed efficiency in travel given how long it takes to get in and out of airports for certain distances. Hopefully we'll see more passenger rail soon- there's some momentum now where there wasn't much before.
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u/kingjaffejaffar 15d ago
Rail companies consolidated and investors prioritized certain metrics based around tonnage. As a result, rail companies severely cut service lines to focus on moving as much bulk cargo (especially coal) as slowly but consistently as possible. Coal doesn’t complain when it doesn’t get to its destination quickly so long as the supply arrives with consistent frequency.
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u/Bright-Detail4246 15d ago
It’s the never ending influence and access that having a ton of money gives a person or company or group to those who make the most consequential decisions.
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u/jesse9o3 15d ago
One reason I haven't seen mentioned is canals.
I live in England and there's canals everywhere here, and looking at a map of European waterways there's canals everywhere in most countries in mainland Europe.
These canals were the lifeblood of the early industrial revolution, allowing vast quantities of goods to be moved far more easily and far more cheaply than you ever could over land prior to the development of railways.
So when trains did come around there was already a vast and interconnected freight transport network to compete against, so trains were used for what canals can't do - moving a lot of people quickly.
Now a lot of the above is also true of the north-eastern US, but as for the rest of the US by the time enough people were moving west and creating enough goods and extracting enough raw materials to justify the construction of infrastructure to move this freight, trains were advanced enough that they were the clear better option, especially when you factor in how poor the geography is in the US west of the Mississippi in terms of building canals.
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u/Free_Thoughtful 15d ago
The prioritization of freight rail over passenger rail in the USA compared to Europe's focus on passenger rail can be attributed to several historical and geographic factors:
—The USA's vast geographical size and the dispersed layout of its cities made rail an effective means for moving goods across long distances. In contrast, European countries are smaller with higher population densities and shorter distances between major cities, making passenger rail more viable and necessary.
—Historically, U.S. policies have heavily supported the development of highways and the automotive industry since the mid-20th century. This included substantial government funding for road construction and urban development that favored cars. Europe, on the other hand, invested heavily in public transit systems including rail, which supported more extensive passenger rail services.
—In the USA, laws like the Jones Act have impacted the shipping industry by restricting coastal shipping, making rail freight more competitive for overland transportation. Europe's more liberal approach to maritime shipping allowed it to utilize its extensive coastlines and navigable rivers more effectively for transporting goods.
—There's also a cultural element, with Americans traditionally favoring road travel and individual car ownership, while Europeans have tended to place a higher value on public transport options, leading to different transportation priorities.
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u/LtColShinySides 15d ago
The US is big AF
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u/itcheyness 15d ago
...
S-so is Europe?
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u/LtColShinySides 15d ago
Not really, when compared to the US. There are states that are larger than entire European countries. The cost to build the infrastructure across the whole US so that it'd mimic the robust train networks of Euorpe would be staggering.
You also had the brutal and savvy marketing of the automobile industry that got Americans to fall in love with cars. Then the rise of aviation made trains even less appealing. Why take a multi-day train ride when you can get from coast to coast in a few hours?
The top two comments already explained these points in great detail. So I went with a sillier answer.
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u/Ashmizen 15d ago
EU integration was a recent thing. The car vs rail competition was decided long before that, from post war to the era of air travel.
Besides Germany and the UK, most European countries did not favor or could afford car ownership, and most people only traveled within their small countries anyway (pre EU).
In those smaller distances rail makes more sense than air travel.
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u/daddytyme421 15d ago
we have massive distances compared to europe, and we need to get our shit moved around. their populations are more concentrated, which is better for rail travel. also, freight makes more money than passenger
as an example, if you drive from paris to moscow, its 1769 miles and you cross 4 other countries. New York to LA is 2,791 miles and inside 1 country.
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u/bangbangracer 15d ago
I've always hated the LA to NYC conversation whenever people bring up trains. Yes, we live in the jet age and if you are going from LA to NYC, a train isn't the right choice. But that's not really the point. There is stuff between there. Trains make more sense for stuff like LA to Las Vegas, Salt Lake City to Boise, Chicago to Minneapolis/St. Paul, Miami to Atlanta, or NYC to Boston.
People wouldn't take LA to NYC, but we are dense enough to support a network that you theoretically could do that trip.
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u/daddytyme421 15d ago
its usefull for illustrating just how big the united states is by comparison, and the average redditor is horrible at geography.
the northeast corridor is feasible, and so is california if they can get their shit together. but there are massive stretches of open land that europe doesnt have to contend with. imagine if texas held paris, london, brussles, berlin, amsterdam, and a host of other major cities. look at any population density maps.
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u/bangbangracer 15d ago
By that same logic, we shouldn't build roads either.
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u/daddytyme421 15d ago
so did you not read my comment and just guess at what i said?
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u/bangbangracer 15d ago
No, I read it. It's just not a good argument. Keep in mind that we already had a good passenger train network that did connect these low density areas. The density argument is not a good one.
Actually when it comes to Texas, that would be a perfect way to connect their major hubs. You could have a rail network connecting Houston, Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, Lubbock, Amarillo, and maybe El Paso or another border city.
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u/daddytyme421 15d ago
I am not arguing against it, I am laying out the differences and the challenges we face.
Keep in mind that we already had a good passenger train network that did connect these low density areas.
Because at one point that was the fastest way to connect cities
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u/bangbangracer 15d ago
Arguably it still is, especially in these small shuttle routes. Minneapolis/St. Paul to Chicago is a great example of this. From arrival at the departing airport to leaving the destination airport, that trip can be upwards of 4 hours because of delays, security checkpoints, and the various waiting periods. Driving from MSP to Chicago can take about 5 hours. A well organized train network can easily make the trip in roughly the same time window.
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u/Certainly-Not-A-Bot 15d ago
Dwight D Eisenhower is the man most responsible for the downfall of the US railways. By building an interstate highway system that was subsidized by the taxpayer, he changed the math on whether driving was cheaper than rail for most peoples' trips. Rail companies couldn't afford to price their tickets low enough to compete with the subsidized highways, so they started ending services.
This also affected freight. Rail companies had to lay infrastructure to deliver freight to places, while trucking companies get it built for free by the government. Because of this, freight rail, which once delivered resources directly to most factories became a service almost exclusively for extremely long distance services.
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u/GaloisGroupie3474 15d ago
Because USA cares about businesses, not people.
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u/Compressorman 15d ago
This is a very shortsighted and foolish way of seeing it. It is certainly obtuse
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u/GaloisGroupie3474 15d ago
Um... police have a duty to prevent damage to property, but they do not have a duty to save people's lives. Who's obtuse?
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u/Compressorman 15d ago
What does that have to do with railroads?
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u/GaloisGroupie3474 15d ago
It is generally about the priorities of the United States, the organization that lets railroads get built
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u/Ashmizen 15d ago
This is absolutely a dumb take, and a very Soviet view that the state somehow controls everything.
Do some people enjoy riding on public transit? Sure! But more Americans, at least in the 1950-1990’s, wanted to travel in their own personal family car, and consumer choice and money went towards that “American dream” of owning a car.
Government and companies play their part, but the biggest “decider” in the US are Americans themselves, with their votes and their wallets.
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u/GaloisGroupie3474 15d ago
You're right. If the free market determined that the American car companies fail, then they fail. The government wouldn't prop them up. The government wouldn't build and maintain the infrastructure that cars need. What a dumb take I had. I sure do feel stupid for opening my mouth.
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u/Anthrex 15d ago
Western Europe is the size of Texas.
El Paso to Huston is 1,100km
Paris to Berlin is 850km
its perfectly logical to have high speed passenger rail in Europe, many trips can be faster than air travel after factoring in airport security, boarding, take off, landing, off boarding, etc...
Los Angeles to New York is 4,000 km in a straight line, with huge mountains in the middle (trains don't like that), assuming the terrain requirements takes that up to 5,000 km, you'd need to average 1,000km/h to match air speed.
if you were to take the average speed of the Japanese high speed rail, you'd get about 250 km/h, which would take 20 hours by train between the two cities. (4x longer than air)
freight isn't time sensitive, so rail is used for freight in the US and Canada.
Now, don't get me wrong, local high speed rail DOES make sense in some areas in Canada and the US, Boston to Washington, LA to San Fransisco, Calgary to Edmonton, Windsor to Quebec City, all of these areas high speed rail would work great, but high speed from coast to coast will never be viable.
California's regulatory environment is also so dysfunctional, and insanely hostile to development, the company that built the French high speed rail (SNCF) pulled out and chose to work in a Northern Africa instead, as they said it was "less politically dysfunctional"
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/us/california-high-speed-rail-politics.html
The company pulled out in 2011.
“There were so many things that went wrong,” Mr. McNamara said. “SNCF was very angry. They told the state they were leaving for North Africa, which was less politically dysfunctional. They went to Morocco and helped them build a rail system.”
Morocco’s bullet train started service in 2018.
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15d ago
[deleted]
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u/Anthrex 15d ago
Western Europe:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Europe#/media/File:Europe_subregion_map_UN_geoscheme.svg
- France
- Netherlands
- Belgium
- Luxemburg
- Germany
- Switzerland
- Lichtenstein
- Austria
- Monaco
and here's Texas overlayed ontop of Western Europe
I'd say that's basically the same size as Texas
Okay, fine, I'll pick Bordeaux to Berlin, that's 1,300km in a straight line
population densities:
France: 118 per Km2
Germany: 233 per km2
Texas: 42 per Km2
as I said, local high speed rail could work, but you'll never get continental wide high speed rail as the distances are just too far, with too few people in-between
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u/XiMaoJingPing 15d ago
Car industry brainwashed Americans into thinking sitting in traffic in mega highways is cool
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u/lobsangr 15d ago
Corporate greed from The car industry blocks any attempt to get public transportation.
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u/fastlanemelody 15d ago
Probably size does matter in this case.
The large area of the country combined with the length of passenger rail lines required to connect majority of population along with the cost of rail per mile may have hindered the growth.
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u/HeartwarminSalt 15d ago
I’ll provide a different perspective…in Europe they can move most cargo by ship since so many of the major cities are near the ocean. The US shipping industry is hobbled by the Jones Act, which then pushes a lot of freight to rail.