[mercutio2]

This is a pretty inflammatory way of saying, “Americans like cars and airplanes. They don’t like trains.”

You’re only making the argument harder for Americans (like me!) who like trains by being dismissive of excellent path-dependent and population-dependent reasons why the US passenger train networks died out.

[mkempe]

Nope. I'm saying that Americans are unfortunately missing out on what is elsewhere a great, modern transportation system. If the federal government hadn't used massive war-driven budgets to replace rail with highways, and continued to massively subsidize highways, you'd be there, too.

[peterwwillis]

Yes, if we had not invested heavily in both highways and airports, we may have invested more in trains (there were other problems with the railroads at the time). But that was over 70 years ago. It's not an "excuse" to explain that things are the way they are, and that it makes no sense today to fund renewed railroad investment.

There's a reason we're flush with self-driving car companies and not railroad companies.

[mkempe]

US government subsidies to airports and highways haven't stopped. They dwarf public subsidies to railroads.