I think it’s easy to call something out as primitive but what changes could be made and how much impact would it have? It doesn’t seem like our freight trains are the bottleneck when moving goods around the country.
They kind of are if you consider how many goods are still shipped by trucks.
The US is perfect for rail - lots of long trips, with lots of goods. It could probably have more market share if goods could move more quickly and flexibly.
Just to add some numbers, the freight modal splits as of 2018 (most recent year with complete data), measured in tonne-kilometers, for a few countries [1] and the EU taken as a whole [2]:
US: 45% road, 38% rail, 17% other (water/pipeline)
Europe is not perfect for rail. Shorter trips, complicated geography, etc. etc. there are some legacy technology constraints that the us doesn’t have or solved a hundred years ago (loading gauge, max train length, couplers).
The fact is the us could do better, pointing to Europe which could also do better is moot.
I believe this as well. And I happen to know of one of the largest rail systems in North America changes its topology weekly. I'm not sure "throughput over latency" is as much of a mindset as those here who say it is.
The US is perfect for rail - lots of long trips, with lots of goods. It could probably have more market share if goods could move more quickly and flexibly.