How do we resurrect Rail in the USA?

Bus travel is inferior to what trains could have, but one thing's for sure, you can get to way more places by bus than by train. And look at the metro areas Amtrak doesn't service. Las Vegas (2 million people), Nashville (1.8 million people), Louisville (1.5 million people), etc. Clearly, Amtrak is in need of a dire revamp on more grounds than just making trains run faster.
Here in Canada I've taken the train from Moncton, NB to Toronto, from Toronto to Ottawa and Montreal, and Toronto to Calgary, AB. On the shorter trips I decided on the train because a 5-6 hour train ride is much more pleasant than the 1 hour flight to the same destination (when you include the 1 hour drive at each end, having to show up 3 hours before your flight, security theatre, etc.). The longer trips were an alternative to driving or taking the bus, and IMO train travels beats them both.
 
I'm working on a timeline at the moment with a long ago PoD, and the US still exists in this timeline. Cars and Airplanes come about around the same time. Rail comes about around the same time. The question is, assume everything about the US is the same (but it covers OTL US, Canada, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Polynesia, and Rio Grande, Sonora, Baja, and Chihuahua in land). If we have cars and planes, how can we have rail survive the 20th century as a viable and respectable way to travel? I'm looking towards having rail be as well traveled as in Europe and with high speed rail as a viable option where it's actually useful, and not present where it would be worthless.

Airplanes, if they try to go far north, could crash from my understanding, maybe trains could survive if what is OTL NW territory, yukon, alaska, Etc. had a larger population
 
Airplanes, if they try to go far north, could crash from my understanding, maybe trains could survive if what is OTL NW territory, yukon, alaska, Etc. had a larger population

I doubt it. Even with a POD centuries in the past, I can't see any of those places ever getting the population needed to support rail. The distances are huge, and the terrain is extremely rough. Anchorage to Whitehorse is exactly 500 miles as the crow flies, across thick forest, glaciers, and some of the highest peaks in North America. And it's almost 700 miles from Whitehorse to Yellowknife. That's a lot of track to maintain in brutal climate, whereas for a plane, you need de-icing equipment, a maintaining runway, and a crew to fly the plane. No way rail could be competitive against air, especially since ever little village in the Alaska Bush has its own airstrip.
 
No one is taking intercity trains as an alternative to plane travel. No, your competitor is the bus and private car. Amtrak covers nearly the entire US. Just make the trains move faster and you're good.

amtrak-system-map.jpg

I think the biggest impediment to rail in the US is this map; as if that's the best the US can do, or remotely appropriate to the best use of railways.
 
No one is taking intercity trains as an alternative to plane travel. No, your competitor is the bus and private car. Amtrak covers nearly the entire US. Just make the trains move faster and you're good.

amtrak-system-map.jpg

For comparison, here a passenger rail network of Germany (which itself would fit, area-wise, into Alabama+Georgia)
http://www.bueker.net/trainspotting/map.php?file=maps/germany/germany.gif

In fact, the real rail line density east of Missisipi isn't that small, but only a small part of the infrastructure is used for passenger transport. Start using most of the network for passenegrs and it will look completely different.
 
We're approaching this from the wrong point of inquiry. It's not "How do we resurrect Rail in the USA?" but "Why would people take Rail in the USA?"
 
We're approaching this from the wrong point of inquiry. It's not "How do we resurrect Rail in the USA?" but "Why would people take Rail in the USA?"
Concur. I think the reality is that given US population density patterns the likely niche for rail is in fact the last mile (i.e. moving into congested cities) rather than the first hundred. In many US cities you'll find parking garages mere yards from the centre of things, often on expensive land or e.g. with expensive lift systems to fit them into congested basements. Subway or tram systems are actually quite attractive for getting to destinations in high density cities - it will often be possible to find stop closer to where you want to go than there is an available parking garage, with the journey in not being affected by congestion.
That really needs an immediate postwar PoD though - perhaps an earlier discovery of the risks of Tetra-Ethyl Lead means a decision to discourage cars in city centres or the LA smog problem somehow kicks in before they've already committed to freeways as a means of moving people to their destination? You really need to increase the building density in cities, or at least in the centres, for this to work.
 

Devvy

Donor
Higher population density is a consequence of something attracting people to a specific area...like effective public transport. Higher population density is a result of (amongst other things) good public transport, it's not a cause.

People would take the train in the USA if it was a reasonable cost, went where they needed to go, and took a reasonable time. Obviously outside of major cities, rail travel just isn't going to be economically feasible. But as a conduit for travelling in to cities sure; as long as it's faster then driving (including driving to park at the local station), more comfortable, and the price is decent.
 
If train travel introduced the same security theatre we see at airports it would be remove one big advantage offered by rail.

Last month I took the train with my wife from our house in downtown Toronto Canada to our hotel located in downtown Montreal, above the main Montreal train station. The train took about five hours. With assigned seating we walked from the 8 min Uber cab trip to our seats on the train in about 10 mins before the train's departure. If I had to arrive three hours before the train so that some obese women in polyester pants can squeeze my junk I'd likely skip the train and fly.
 
Here's a good map of train ridership in California in 2009. When you add the Metrolink and Coaster commuter rail
with the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner you get hundreds of trains moving ~55,000 people per day between Santa Barbara and San Diego, serving 4 metro systems used by ~400,000 people. In the north 2 Amtrak and 2 commuter routes provide hundreds of trains for ~46,000 people as far south as Bakersfield, serving metro systems used by ~600,000 people.
us-passenger-rail-california-01.jpg


The underpinnings are there.
 
Best way to resurrect passenger rail in the USA is to avoid or reduce its decline in the first place. For starters, the US was capable of high speed rail in the early 1900s, however they stuck to 40-65 mph speeds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-...States#Faster_inter-urbans:_1920.E2.80.931941

The USA had trains that could run at over 70 mph avg speeds http://mikes.railhistory.railfan.net/r016.html

Make straighter rails designed for speed, and 80-100 mph top speeds should be possible. Once that infrastructure is in place and paid for, it will be difficult for the airlines to compete.

 
Last edited:
Best way to resurrect passenger rail in the USA is to avoid or reduce its decline in the first place. For starters, the US was capable of high speed rail in the early 1900s, however they stuck to 40-65 mph speeds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-...States#Faster_inter-urbans:_1920.E2.80.931941

The USA had trains that could run at over 70 mph avg speeds http://mikes.railhistory.railfan.net/r016.html

Make straighter rails designed for speed, and 80-100 mph top speeds should be possible. Once that infrastructure is in place and paid for, it will be difficult for the airlines to compete.

Some of the fastest routes were between CB&Q 'Zephyr', C&NW '400' and Milwaukee Road 'Hiawatha' on the Twin Cities/Chicago run, with average speed of 70 and peaks over 110mph, just over a 6 hour run. At the time, these were the fastest scheduled runs in the world.

These still lost out in the '60s, as speeds dropped, to 7 hours by 1960 as the roads started to cut back on passenger effort, with four daytime runs reduced to two.

The current Amtrak 'Empire Builder' does that run in over eight hours on the ex-Milwaukee Road track, despite fewer stops, better lines and controls, and not needing water stops, like the '400' did in 1939 before switching to diesel, that changed the time from 7 hours to 6 1/2 on the lines that paralleled that MILW track, 421 miles vs 419

The speeds had been there.

But still lost
 
Just looking at the Midwest there are several routes which would be quite effective:
Chicago-Minneapolis (ensuring Madison & Milwaukee connected), Chicago-St Louis, Chicago-Cleveland-Pittsburgh, Chicago-Indianapolis-Cincinnati. Connections (not necessarily high speed but medium speed) could be branches to Green Bay, WI, Rochester, MN, Des Moines, IA, Louisville, KY (commuter rail). As can be seen one could, if so inclined go from Pittsburgh to Minneapolis on this route, but most will do shorter segments. If you have a New York-Pittsburgh high speed you could start in NY and end up in Minneapolis - obviously very few would do that. Also connecting could be Boston-Albany-Buffalo-Cleveland (all segments within the range of effective for rail).

A key issue is connectivity to the high speed net, as well as to other transportation hubs. After WWII if you had hubs for bus/rail in city centers, and a connector to the airport (like most European cities) this will also keep things alive. It is also possible, often, to have the high speed rail have a stop at the airport improving intermodal transport. Along that line, if you have short line service with 50 (or more) miles of the high speed net this allows easier access from smaller cities.

Technically, Minneapolis doesn't have a train station.
 
I think that the question how to resurrect (passenger) rail use in the US is, basically, what we are (haltingly) doing now.
1) Build frequencies between close city pairs/groups. Extend the peripheral terminals until they get close enough to overlap or connect with the expanding regional trains in the next area down the line. Florida, California, and the NE Corridor the best examples.
2) Establish new LD/intermediate routes wherever length of haul (the usually cited 200-500 miles) and political interest can support it.
 
Does rail work in any large country with huge distances between cities? China's making a good run at it, with Maglev trains and other HSR, however a Communist Dictatorship can pretty much get whatever it wants. India's rail network is massive and highly utilized by the people, mainly due to lack of affordable or viable options due to crap roads, poverty and no cheap intercity flights. China and India also have the benefit of cultural events (eg. Chinese New Year) that require huge population movements throughout the year.

What does Brazil do?
 
Top