You mean passenger trains. For the most part, the US rail network was constructed for and is primarily used for cargo transportation, where it excels.
The perpetual comparison of the US (cargo) train network to the other passenger train networks (Europe, Japan, China) is a tedius and misguided apples to oranges comparison.
Most of these comparisons blatently ignore the fact that population density is radically different between the US and these other systems, which is an important criteria in understanding the time/economic tradeoffs.
I like train travel a lot and living in the New York to Boston corridor I've always had easy access to commuter trains, the New York and Boston subway systems, and Amtrak for longer regional travel. Regardless, I don't think passenger rail makes much economic sense outside high-density areas and even then only survives with dubious tax subsidies.
In Europe, barges handle the freight traffic that fills the US railroads and trains handle the cross-continent traffic that runs in airplanes in the USA. It's mostly a result of Europe's many great rivers and the USA's vast open spaces.
That doesn't mean we can have great high speed rail from Boston to DC and Florida, from SF to LA, and from Chicago to New York, just like Europe can run freight trains under the Swiss Alps.
The main reason quality passenger rail doesn't get built and run well in the parts of the USA where it should is politics. The FRA regulations, the national transportation funding process, the state funding politics, the work rules, liability rules, labor regulations, safety regulations, and environmental regulations all work to make high speed rail five or more times as expensive per mile as in Europe. At that price, we should just live with the low quality infrastructure we've got. The only alternative is to reform the process and even supposed rail advocates like Obama haven't lifted a finger on the most obvious abuses, e.g. to loosen FRA buff strength standards or strict Buy American rules for rolling stock.
The entire interstate highway system is extremely heavily subsidized (along with gasoline). I'd be interested to see how it would compare with passenger trains without the subsidies, but I suspect it's not as lopsided as we think when it comes to a marginal passenger.
I understand what you are saying about the highway system being subsidized, but I'm not sure I understand your reference to gasoline.
Private energy companies explore, extract, refine, and sell gasoline, with all sorts of taxes (as opposed to subisidies) along the way. What subsidies are you refering to for gasoline?
The government creates foreign policy around the maintenance of oil supplies, which has a very large cost, and is largely a gift to the oil companies. This is reflected in income taxes rather than in the cost of gasoline. There are also large tax breaks given to oil companies. Domestic fossil fuels like coal and natural gas don't get quite the same treatment, since we have plenty.
You mean passenger trains. For the most part, the US rail network was constructed for and is primarily used for cargo transportation, where it excels.
The perpetual comparison of the US (cargo) train network to the other passenger train networks (Europe, Japan, China) is a tedius and misguided apples to oranges comparison.
Most of these comparisons blatently ignore the fact that population density is radically different between the US and these other systems, which is an important criteria in understanding the time/economic tradeoffs.
I like train travel a lot and living in the New York to Boston corridor I've always had easy access to commuter trains, the New York and Boston subway systems, and Amtrak for longer regional travel. Regardless, I don't think passenger rail makes much economic sense outside high-density areas and even then only survives with dubious tax subsidies.