How exactly is this passenger train worse than any current freight trains? I grew up less than 1km from a freight train track in rural America and I knew well enough to avoid freight trains even as a kid.

I really feel like this attitude really hurts the US in catching up with the rest of the world in good, affordable public transportation (which we are decades behind in). Australia has fewer people and is less densely populated than the US and most of their capital cities have really good train+bus systems.

I think to that Ben Sollee song, "In America, in America, they bury us, with our cars."