A more rail-oriented US

I don't have a problem with rail traffic sport where it makes sense. Sadly in most of the United States, most, try 95%, it just doesnt make sense. In Urban corridors is where it makes the most sense. I've heard the comment about the 300 mile distance before. A lot depends on just what you are going to when you get there. Say I live in Chicago and wa t to go to St Louis for a three game series with the Cardinals. That would be ideal. Stay downtown, you're close to Busch. But what if you have to go on business and the client (s)/customers are spread out. Then you are most likely looking at renting a car. Might as well drive yourself. Light or commuter rail is another issue. Just what is the transportation situation where you are going. About the same time as HSR from Chicago to the Twin Cities was being talked about and turned down in Wisconsin a light rail line was proposed to run from Kenosha* to downtown Milwaukee with stops in between. Over existing right of way**. The cars would have been similar to the old Budd self powered ones. That was opposed by a number of groups/individuals. Some of them community activists. At the same time Milwaukee runs its freeway flyers from pick-up sites located at exits along the interstate. Even if it runs at a loss it gets cars off of the road at peak hours. I'm still pissed about the North Shore shutting down and the right of way being cut up.

Kenosha is also the northern terminus for Metra
** Former C&NW now UP
 
When I said Amtrak I meant completely government run. The states have some say of course, can't just place trackage or plop a station down wherever but the vast majority of it would be funded federally by legislation in the vein of the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956. To be specific, a new version of the High Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965 would have many changed stipulations, such as a far larger starting budget than the 20 million they had then (possibly 40 to 45 million) and the creation of a Railway Trust Fund with a similar purpose to the Highway Trust Fund to encourage states to build, operate, and maintain railways that can be also be used by Amtrak in the case they don't want the federal government to just be the one to own the track.

That is more possible but in that case you are going to have to have a full fledged national network. The people in Montana aren't going to be thrilled with paying for a train between NYC and Philly unless they get a link to Butte.
 
That is more possible but in that case you are going to have to have a full fledged national network. The people in Montana aren't going to be thrilled with paying for a train between NYC and Philly unless they get a link to Butte.
Well that was basis of my idea- train services stick to their region. Butte would be part of the hypothetical Rockies region and likely get services to Idaho and to the Front Range Urban Corridor as well as service to Billings via Helena or the two separately.
 
Well that was basis of my idea- train services stick to their region. Butte would be part of the hypothetical Rockies region and likely get services to Idaho and to the Front Range Urban Corridor as well as service to Billings via Helena or the two separately.
That is not enough. Connections to Billings and Helena is just going to be laughed at, even in Montana.
 
That is not enough. Connections to Billings and Helena is just going to be laughed at, even in Montana.

Is the traffic between Billings and Helena enough to even justify 3-a-week direct flights or Greyhound buses?

These are the problem that plague passenger rail in the most of the USA writ large- densities too low to justify routes and you still need a car when you get to your destination.

I've said it before, I'll say it again. To foamers, I sound like a railhater, to railhaters, I sound like a foamer.
 
By the late fifties, it was obvious that jet airliners would replace trains for long distance travel. The problem is, no effort was made to link airports to the rail network to integrate train connections for the shorter distance runs. A traveler lands at O’Hare in Chicago and should be able to make a seamless connection to a train to a final destination of say, Peoria. Instead, the traveler would have to either change planes or rent a car.

Move Union Stations to the airports? It might sound ridiculous today, but it would have integrated new with existing travel. Fifty years ago, Kansas City laid ground for a new airport on farmland some 20 miles north of downtown. How hard would it have been to connect the rails? Instead, the Santa Fe line from Chicago to Los Angeles still runs right through downtown. The railway station. One Toke Over the Line.
I remember when the station for Newark Liberty Airport was opened on the NJ Transit corridor. Yes! YES! WHY DIDN'T THEY BUILD THIS YEARS AGO?!?!?
 
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