[gascoigne]

I realize I played this card first, but maybe, just maybe, railways should not be for-profit infrastructure to begin with.

Japan, for example, has a similar problem with the bullet train. There are plenty of sleepy towns that would make little sense to stop at between Tokyo and Osaka.

They still have about 15 stops on that line anyway, and you have to take the slowest bullet trains to get there. But the stops have totally changed life in these cities.

Perhaps there's a similar case to be made for Northern Nevada?

[AnthonyMouse]

Northern Nevada isn't sleepy towns, it's nothing. It's the desert. But that's not even the problem if there was a metropolis on the other side of it.

There isn't.

Tokyo is ~300 miles from Osaka. If you go 300 miles from Sacramento, you're not in Osaka, population 2.7 million, you're in Winnemucca, population under 9000. The first meaningful destination on the far side of California is Salt Lake City, population ~200,000, 650 miles away in a different time zone. And that is not a big city, it's just the only thing anywhere near there.

To get to a proper metropolitan area you're going to Denver, more than 1100 miles from where you started. It's too far away.