this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2024
462 points (98.1% liked)
memes
10308 readers
1592 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to [email protected]
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.
Sister communities
- [email protected] : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- [email protected] : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- [email protected] : Linux themed memes
- [email protected] : for those who love comic stories.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
The United States has more usable rail miles than all of Europe combined. But it's limited to freight traffic only. Amtrak has to lease time on the rails, which is why it's pricey
Also, "usable" does not mean "useful". Most rail in the US is incredibly out of maintenance, and deeply limited on top speed as a result. Many trains aren't going above 60MPH at any point in their journey not because of length or power, but because the rails (or the cars, or the engine) simply won't allow anyone to go faster SAFELY.
No doubt, it is just funny to be that passenger rail is so out of fashion in the US that most of the population things the rails simply don't exist, when they clearly do, in droves even. They are just privately owned and rarely shared.