The US has a larger rail network than the EU, still. Actually, the US's freight rail system is the envy of Europe, although our passenger rail sucks.
> The "America is too spread out" argument is total bullshit. At the very least, make the cities have good transport and walkable areas. It can happen in a very short time frame. We lost it in a short time frame. Northern Indiana has the same population density of Scotland, so it can work if we build it. We use to have trains from Nashville to Atlanta. The famous "Chattanooga Choo-choo" doesn't even have an AmTrak anymore.
No, it's not bullshit. It is not profitable to have a train route of more than about 5 hours (China is sort of the exception that proves the rule, as their air network is incredibly constrained which eliminates alternatives to trains). That is roughly the straight-line distance between Chicago and NYC, which (as I've pointed out before) is longer than the longest axes of most European countries. And Chicago-NYC is one of the shorter links between major city pairs in the US.
It's also funny that you compare to Scotland, since Scotland has some of the worst availability of rail in Europe.