This was the biggest shock when seeing Europe, their trains are so much better. Considering how sprawling the continental US is, it's a shame we don't have more and better quality trains.
It’s because the US is so sprawling that trains lost out to planes there. Almost all of Europe is accessible in a day on a train. Only planes can do that in the US. So the US trains don’t have their costs amortized over a large fraction of business travel as well as vacationers.
High speed trains could still help connect a lot more hubs in the US. And more low speed trains and trolleys could reduce local traffic. IMO car culture took root, and we dove in head first with little thought to the long term consequences.
I have compared them, and I don’t see what you’re seeing.
Depending on how you measure (do you include European Russia, ie the bit west of the Urals?) Europe is larger.
Yeah, NYC to Chicago is about 18 hours over a continental divide. You do out west and things get even further. Outside the Northeast corridor and a few other city pairs, train trips are pretty long in the US.
I've been tempted to do at least part of one of the long distance US train routes but I think I'd get pretty bored, I'm guessing the food isn't very good, and I've spent a lot of time out West.
The EU is 1.5 million square miles of land area. The continental US is 3.1 million square miles of land area. Continental Europe incl. non-EU countries is over 4 million square miles of land area.
