Why Trains Suck in America

The United States has poor passenger rail service partly because its population is spread across enormous distances. Many American cities are too far apart for trains to compete effectively with airplanes, although several densely populated regions have suitable geography for rail travel.

Trains are particularly competitive when cities are approximately 200–300 miles apart. On these routes, traveling directly between city centers can be faster than driving to an airport, checking in, passing through security, flying, and traveling from the destination airport into the city.

America has several corridors where trains should be competitive but remain slow and expensive. The problem cannot be explained by low population density alone because some major cities are close enough together to support frequent, efficient passenger rail services.

A conventional Amtrak journey from Washington, DC, to New York was quoted at a minimum of $49 and took 3 hours and 29 minutes. According to the comparison presented, this was only about 30 minutes faster than driving.

A comparable train journey from Rennes to Paris, France, cost €27, approximately $30, and took 2 hours and 4 minutes. The French service was substantially faster and cheaper than the comparable American journey.

Amtrak's Acela Express was identified as America's only high-speed train service at the time. A Washington-to-New York ticket started at approximately $120, yet the journey still took 2 hours and 50 minutes.

Turkey, Poland, and Uzbekistan operated trains faster than America's fastest passenger train. The comparison illustrated how the United States lagged behind countries with smaller economies and less internationally prominent railway systems.

American railroad development began in 1826, and the first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869. The transcontinental connection arrived only 19 years after California became a state in 1850.

Railroads played an important role in American industrialization between 1843 and 1860. Their expanding networks connected markets, supported economic development, and transformed the movement of goods and people.

Railroad expansion helped create one of the world's earliest standardized time systems. Coordinating services across large distances made consistent timekeeping increasingly important.

Freight transportation historically generated most American railroad profits. Although passenger services could occasionally be profitable, moving commercial goods was generally the more lucrative business.

Railroad companies used passenger services partly to advertise their freight businesses. Comfortable and prestigious passenger trains impressed business executives who could subsequently decide which railroad companies would transport their commercial goods.

Passenger trains were once considered among the most glamorous and efficient methods of transportation. Their prestige helped justify passenger operations even when those services were less profitable than freight.

The growing popularity of automobiles during the 1930s weakened the commercial purpose of passenger rail. Executives increasingly preferred traveling by car, reducing the promotional value of maintaining prestigious passenger trains.

Commercial aviation's expansion during the 1950s further undermined passenger rail. As executives and other travelers shifted toward airplanes, railroads lost another reason to maintain passenger services as advertisements for their freight operations.

US Postal Service contracts helped keep some passenger trains profitable after automobiles and airplanes became popular. The revenue from transporting and processing mail supported services that otherwise struggled financially.

Many passenger trains carried railway post office cars where postal employees sorted letters during journeys. Processing mail while trains traveled reduced the time required to prepare letters for delivery.

Mail sorting became increasingly mechanized during the 1960s, while trucks and airplanes took over more postal transportation. These developments led to the discontinuation of railway post offices and eliminated an important source of passenger rail revenue.

The loss of postal contracts made commercial passenger rail operations increasingly difficult to sustain. Railroads could no longer rely on mail revenue to offset the financial weakness of their passenger services.

By the late 1960s, federal regulation was keeping many remaining passenger routes operating. The Interstate Commerce Commission required railroad companies to continue providing certain passenger services despite their poor financial performance.

President Richard Nixon signed the Rail Passenger Service Act in 1970, creating Amtrak. The legislation established a federally funded national passenger rail company intended to preserve and improve intercity passenger train travel.

Amtrak inherited a passenger rail industry that had already lost much of its commercial foundation. Its creation prevented the complete disappearance of major passenger services but did not resolve the economic and infrastructure problems that had weakened them.

Amtrak operated approximately 300 train journeys daily in a country of 319 million people, according to the figures presented. France, with approximately 66 million residents, had around 14,000 daily services operated by SNCF, its national railway company.

Approximately 800 of SNCF's 14,000 daily train services were high-speed journeys. The comparison showed that France operated far more passenger trains than the United States despite having roughly one-fifth of its population.

Only approximately 72% of Amtrak trains arrived on time, according to the figures cited. Poor punctuality was presented as a major weakness of American passenger rail.

The California Zephyr recorded an on-time arrival rate of just 31% in June 2016. The long-distance service connecting Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area was used to illustrate the severity of Amtrak's reliability problems.

Amtrak owned only 730 miles of the approximately 21,300 miles of track it operated on. This meant it controlled roughly 3.4% of its operating network and depended heavily on infrastructure belonging to other railroad companies.

Union Pacific and BNSF controlled approximately equal portions of the California Zephyr's route. Each freight railroad owned roughly half the track used by the passenger service.

Amtrak attributed only 1.4% of California Zephyr delays to itself. According to Amtrak's figures cited in the episode, the remaining 98.6% were attributed to the railroad companies that owned the tracks.

Freight companies had an incentive to prioritize their own trains over Amtrak services. Passenger trains could be instructed to wait while freight trains passed, disrupting Amtrak's schedules.

Amtrak's dependence on privately owned tracks limited its negotiating power. Because alternative railway routes were generally unavailable, freight operators faced little competitive pressure to give passenger trains better access.

French passenger rail was presented as benefiting from more unified control of railway infrastructure. The episode contrasted Amtrak's reliance on freight-owned tracks with France's national rail system, where passenger services could receive priority.

Freight trains occupied a much larger share of American rail transportation than European rail transportation. The episode stated that approximately 38% of American freight moved by rail, compared with 8% in Europe.

America's extensive freight railway activity created additional congestion for passenger services. European passenger operators generally faced less competition from freight trains for access to railway tracks.

Amtrak was established long after America's major railroad infrastructure had been constructed. Unlike the original railroad companies, it did not have the opportunity to develop its own extensive network before surrounding areas became heavily populated.

The Northeast Corridor was identified as America's strongest candidate for high-speed rail. Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston form a sequence of five major urban centers suitable for an interconnected passenger railway.

The Northeast Corridor's railway infrastructure dates largely to the nineteenth century. Railroad development helped attract people, businesses, and settlements to nearby areas, contributing to the densely populated landscape surrounding the tracks.

The historical success of Northeast railroads created an obstacle to modernizing them. Because towns and urban development expanded around existing railway lines, relatively little undeveloped land remained available for constructing new, straighter high-speed routes.

Building an entirely new high-speed railway between Washington and Boston would require substantial property acquisition and demolition. The high density of development along the corridor makes major construction projects exceptionally expensive.

Amtrak estimated that upgrading the Northeast Corridor to standards comparable with France's high-speed railway network would cost approximately $151 billion. The enormous capital requirement was presented as a major obstacle to establishing true high-speed rail in the region.

The Northeast Regional connected Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, and Boston. It was identified as one of Amtrak's few profitable services.

The Northeast Regional's profitability weakened the financial incentive for a complete reconstruction. The episode argued that Amtrak had limited reason to commit enormous funds to replacing infrastructure supporting a service that was already making money.

American cities generally had much lower population densities than their European counterparts. The comparison cited American urban densities averaging below 15,000 residents per square mile, while some European cities reached approximately 55,000 residents per square mile.

Many European cities developed compact urban centers before automobiles became widespread. Because most residents historically depended on walking, homes, businesses, and services were concentrated within relatively short distances.

European railway passengers were more likely to reach their final destinations on foot. Dense, walkable city centers increased the practical convenience of arriving at a central railway station.

American passengers often required additional transportation after leaving a railway station. Lower-density development meant that reaching the station did not necessarily mean reaching the actual destination.

The need for additional transportation reduced trains' advantage over airplanes in American cities. When passengers needed a car or another service after arriving by train, the convenience of city-center rail travel became less significant.

The episode considered a nationwide American high-speed railway network comparable with those of France or Germany unlikely. Although numerous projects had been proposed, their construction costs and other difficulties made widespread completion doubtful.

A private company called All Aboard Florida was developing a passenger railway between Miami and Orlando. The project was presented as an example of privately financed investment in faster intercity rail transportation.

The proposed Miami–Orlando service had a maximum speed of 125 miles per hour. Speed restrictions along significant portions of the route meant its overall journey time was expected to be only slightly faster than driving.

California was constructing a high-speed railway intended to connect San Francisco and Anaheim. The proposed journey time was approximately 2 hours and 40 minutes.

California's planned San Francisco–Anaheim train journey was expected to take less than half the driving time. The project demonstrated the potential advantages of high-speed rail over long, heavily traveled road routes.

The California project faced a prolonged construction schedule despite work having begun. At the time of the episode, completion of its first phase was projected for 2029.

Public support for California's high-speed railway was described as declining. The combination of a lengthy construction timetable and uncertain public backing complicated the project's prospects.

Improving existing railway infrastructure was proposed as a more practical alternative to building an entirely new high-speed network. The central argument was that relatively modest improvements could deliver meaningful journey-time reductions at a fraction of the cost.

Amtrak's proposed $151 billion Northeast Corridor high-speed system was estimated to cost approximately $320 million per mile. That amounted to roughly $60,000 for every foot of new high-speed railway infrastructure.

Existing Northeast Regional trains already reached speeds of approximately 125 miles per hour on certain sections. However, they maintained those speeds only briefly because other portions of the route imposed lower limits.

Maintaining 125 miles per hour throughout the Washington-to-New York journey could reduce travel time to slightly more than two hours. The calculation illustrated the potential benefits of removing restrictions on existing infrastructure rather than constructing an entirely new railway.

Incremental improvements across multiple sections could produce substantial cumulative time savings. Even changes that reduced individual portions of a journey by only a few minutes could collectively eliminate much longer delays.

Amtrak faced a cycle in which limited funding contributed to poor service, which discouraged ridership and reinforced its financial difficulties. Without sufficient investment, the company struggled to make the improvements needed to attract additional passengers.

French taxpayers were described as covering approximately half the operating cost of each SNCF journey. The episode presented substantial public funding as an important reason France could maintain extensive and comparatively effective passenger rail services.

Amtrak operated under a different financial structure from the French railway system. It was designed as a for-profit corporation receiving government subsidies, creating pressure to operate commercially while remaining dependent on public support.

The episode identified insufficient public investment as a central obstacle to improving American passenger rail. Geography, freight ownership, aging infrastructure, urban design, and expensive construction all contributed to the problem, but meaningful improvements were portrayed as unlikely without stronger financial support.