The US public transportation, especially the passenger rail network is fucking pathetic.
this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2025
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tickets are cheaper? if you want to travel the same distance it is far from cheap to travel by train, in Europe at least
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The only national passenger train service I know of is Amtrak, which shares its tracks with freight carriers. So the current infrastructure isn't designed for high-speed rail and freight carriers usually get priority.
Also, The US is really big, so everything isn't a short train ride away from everything else. If I wanted to visit the Grand Canyon from where I live, it's over 2,000 miles away. That's 30 hours of driving just by car.
freight carriers usually get priority.
They're not supposed to. Passenger traffic on Amtrak should be getting priority but the rail lines basically say "fuck it" and do what they want.
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Train infrastructure is so underfunded (thx oil) that you can still get the fingering at most train stations for a really reasonable fee.
Cuz of all the issues that come with laying rail lines. Eminent Domain has somehow become even more unpopular as of late. And guess what building rail lines requires?
Frequently, blowing holes in hills and mountains so you can get that 3% gradient.
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Crackheads will steal the copper from the rail and cause a 30 car derailment.
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Rail is hard if it's from one country to another (I think Europe is the exception)
In my case, I have to take rail from Ankara to Edirne, Edirne to Bucharest, Bucharest to Vienna, and after Vienna I can access anywhere in Europe
The problem is, going from Edirne to Bucharest requires two visas
Even in the EU there are still some difficulties. Like Finland and Estonia are on broad gauge not standard gauge. So their network isn’t connected to the rest of the EU. Spain and French haven’t connected their high speed rail network because of some dispute. So you have to get off at the border take a slow train across the border than walk to another platform to get on the other train.
Also rules says the crew needs to speak the local language of the country the train drives trough and traffic rules vary by country so if the driver doesn’t speak the language or doesn’t know the rules they need to change drivers when a train crosses a border which adds more delays.
Problem is also that there are still many rail networks in Europe that are privately owned.
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I live in South Korea and HSRs are pretty much the only mode of (intercity) transportation that is relevant. Buses take too long, planes are expensive, while HSR(KTX)s are marginally cheaper than buses and take about ⅔ of a time.
Of course, our country's much much smaller than US/Canada so even the farthest lane takes only about 2.5 hours. It's pretty cool.
Something something Hungarian National Railway fucking useless once you go further than a 100 kms from the capital city.
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Are they stupid?
(Yes)