| sigh Yes, it moves a lot. Because there are 300m+ people there[0]. But if you just search for a 'USA train network' and compare that to a 'Europe train network' it would be pretty self evident. Also take a note of the cargo distribution of the US train traffic in the link you provided yourself: >> Of all the rail cargo, approximately 91% is made up of agriculture and energy products, vehicles and parts, construction materials, coal, chemicals, food, metal, minerals, and paper. Most of it is not transported by the trucks in the first place. And what matters the most is what you need a proper network distribution so you only haul the last 50-100kms on the trucks, instead of the "trips [what] can take several days at high speeds"[1] So you brought the wrong metric in the numbers measuring contest. [0] and let's ignore what China and Russia has a quite comparable numbers of tonne-kilometers: 2.525, 2.518, 2.222. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44479968 |
But the U.S. train networks primarily serve cargo; the passenger rail network is quite sparse. This is because people in the U.S. prefer to fly or drive or taking the train given the vast distances involved between major cities. (London to Paris is about equal to the distance between LA and Vegas but significantly shorter than the distance between LA and SF.)