Freight rail in the USA is provided by four major private companies and dozens of smaller ones, all operationally profitable (afaik) tho some beg the state for help upgrading their infrastructure. Amtrak typically operates at the discretion of freight railways. https://twitter.com/BitingGadfly/status/964279164449755137 …
Not really...even when they had a captive market, us railways were generally hostile to passenger needs. Absolutely no surprise that people turned to cars asap
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For passenger rail to work in USA we must absolutely avoid returning to old us passenger rail practice--leftover tendencies still plague existing passenger rail here
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You’d have to show that passenger would be very (O/R of 50% plus) to even have the class ones begin to want the headache. Not even thinking along the infra upgrades required.
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I'm not arguing this since I don't know, but what would be good reading on the subject/a summary of what this entailed? Movies and books and such from the pre-war era don't seem to cast US rail as particularly bad.
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I will have to search for some of those. For the 70s-90s, “The Men who loved trains” is my goto
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some passages in Mees's "Transport For Suburbia" cover the problem, but the best evidence is in numerous 19th century books with titles like "The Railroad Problem"
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"American Railroads as Investments" (1893) is relentlessly positive but full of tells, and also lays bare the core issue: freight was more profitable with less effort
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The best passenger rail in that era was to be found on interurbans and streetcars rather than on major intercity railways (except where they provided commuter services--and even then...)
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Yeah, peak is really in the streamliner era, where you have Chessie vs the PRR to see who has the Best, smoothest, air conditioned sleepers with Pullman service
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...which is great for overnight trips, but most travel is over shorter distances--and most people trying to get somewhere would rather pay as little as they can and not bother with reservations
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The sort of travel which US railways excelled at providing was that which *most mimicked freight,* ie long distances and low frequencies, with the impetus on travelers to reserve trips in advance rather than on the railway to provide many trips on spec and expect ppl to show up
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When are you citing that? Surely pre-WW2 they were competing for passengers. It served both as revenue and advertisement. During the 70s is when they became hostile as it was a massive drain on an already overstressed system.
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