Most of this is just that the US rail system is amazingly shitty by global standards.

davidgay 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

This is an extremely simplistic view. For instance, the US moves more of its freight (by percentage) than all western European countries except Switzerland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_rail_usag...

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troupo 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Passengers are not freight. And freight is one of the reasons US railways suck for passengers.

	▲	xnx 34 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Moving people by train in the US makes about as much sense as delivering pizzas by barge.
	▲	Der_Einzige an hour ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Freight is better. Passengers don’t belong on trains.

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llbbdd 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The US is a very big, very spread out place. I'm not sure which country has trains that take you directly to your front door.

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ssl-3 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

It is indeed a very big place.

But this fellah seemed to have that part figured out: Bike to the train station, and take the bike on the train. That part seems straight-forward. The train stations were near-enough to where they wanted to start, and near-enough to where they wanted to be.

The problems they lament seem to revolve chiefly around the specifics of taking the bike on a train, and the limited schedule of the train, and the lack of adhesion to that schedule.

Those problems wouldn't be improved if the vastness of the US were reduced, would they?

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mixmastamyk 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Recently, on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47815395

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troupo 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There are lots of potential high-traffic corridors, and the US is still incapable of serving them.

	▲	xnx 32 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Hard to find an unserved corridor where train makes more sense than plane or car.