I've personally completely stopped flying.
First & foremost, US rail is minimal in terms of routes offered and significantly more expensive. Compared to planes, it's at least double the cost, and 4x to 5x the cost if you want a bed and shower throughout the multi-day trip.
Second, the US is also significantly larger, making train travel much less practical. The longest trip through Sweden is roughly 1,000 miles top to bottom. That's most of a full 24 hours day in a train. In the US, it's about 3x that from New York City to California.
The problem with the US isn't size, it's political will. America simply does not want to have high-quality, high-speed train service.
Trains are extensive in Europe in part because each country was able to make (relatively) smaller investments in their own networks. As time went by over the decades, these grew and were able to connect with each other. That type of gradual growth wasn't possible in the use where small incremental changes weren't useful. Decades ago, and still today, many routes that would be useful would need to span hundred of miles where there are no intervening points of interest. Meaning a massive investment would be required for a single point to point route.
It's too simplistic to point toward a single variable for something of this sort. Many variables come together to reach this point. Political will is only part of it, but even then, you have to ask why isn't there political will? It often has as much to do with economic and geographic realities, not a general unwillingness to invest in infrastructure. See our build out of the US interstate system beginning in the 50's as a counterexample to our lack of build out for trains.
What recent reduction in scope? Letting aside all the confusion caused by either communications incompetence in the Newsome Administration or deliberate intent to provoke controversy, all Newsome announced was:
(1) that construction work and related land acquisition would be focussed on the already-designated initial construction segment, which was already the case (hence, the name “initial construction” segment.)
(2) That environmental work would continue on the rest of the Phase 1 SF-LA alignment, but the state would not fund more than environmental work until outside (federal, private, or other) financing was identified. (That only the ICS was funded for construction, and that outside funds would be a precondition for other construction was already the case, too; focus on finding such additional arrangements had focussed particularly on the planned initial operations segment, which overlaps with, but does not include all of, the ICS.)
(3) That the Phase 2 extensions to Sacramento and San Diego weren't getting any work (which they haven't been forever; they've been drawn in as future expansions but not covered in any of th recent business plans.)
Or, in sum total, basically a reiteration of the status quo as if it were new policy.
And yes, it really is a general unwillingness to invest in infrastructure. You can see it in everything else going on in the US these days. No, the 50s interstate system is not a counterpoint, because that was 60-70 years ago now, and things in this country have changed a lot since then. The US was good at lots of infrastructure in those days, not just highways.
I have further evidence on my interpretation of geographical circumstances greatly influencing this issue: Canada.
Canada has roughly similar ridership as the US. US has about 1.7 rides per person, Canada has about 2.1. Might seem a fair bit higher, but compare it to a country like the UK, which has 26 rides per person, and that's not even counting the London Tube. Why?
Because the US and Canada face very similar geographical circumstances.
Maybe my interpretation weighs geography slightly too much, but if so, yours seems to weigh it not at all. That simply isn't supported by either the data available or the historic evolution of rail travel in the US.
I really don't see what's so difficult to understand. For the most part it's a point to point network, and every link, due to the points being further apart, costs significantly more to build. The exceptions, like on the east coast where points are closer, actually do have better rail. Not great, but more comprehensive than the middle 90% of the country where geography is as I have described.
Canadian cities are generally farther apart than US cities, except for Toronto-Ottawa-Montreal. All the Canadian cities are just on the other side of the border, which is the longest undefended international border in the world.
>The exceptions, like on the east coast where points are closer, actually do have better rail. Not great
Not great is a severe understatement.
>I really don't see what's so difficult to understand.
I don't either. San Diego, LA, and SanFran are not that far apart, and would be well served by a high speed rail like they have in Japan and China and Europe. Yet we don't have it. Same goes for the northeast corridor. These cities are no farther apart than the cities served by HSR in these other countries.
I suspect few people in Sweden would recommend traveling Stockholm to Madrid by train
It's really the two segments you mention that get a lot of the traffic. You see this when you pull into NYP from Boston and the train pretty much empties out.
Not in the Sweden I live in. Sure there is some weak social pressure to fly less and some companies have a policy that you take the train if it's less than 3-4 hours or so (of course with SJ being SJ a 3 hour train ride has an annoying tendency to take 4-8 hours), but no one expect you take the train Stockholm-Umeå.
Europe had a pretty decent overnight train network in the 90s and even into the 2000s.
Then flying got cheap and people basically didn't want to take those trains any longer. Most disappeared.
What, short of making flying much more expensive, would make a new attempt at introducing them successful, you think?
More onerous security procedures at airports, including pat-downs, extremely long lines, needing to show up 3-4 hours early, etc.?
Also, smaller and smaller seats on planes might encourage more use of trains. How do people from the Netherlands (tallest in the world on average) handle flying these days?
No it hasn't. This might be true in your direct social circle, but I know enough people who shuffle between Sthlm and GBG a few times a week on the plane to prove otherwise.
It's about 1500 miles from one end to the other, and not exactly "dense".
Sure it's small compared with Russia or Canada, but it's larger than most.
Realistically anything upto about 500 miles shouldn't need flights -- that's 2-3 hours on a train.
Once you go over 1000 miles then train stops making sense, it's 5 or 6 hours compared with 2 on a plane. 5 hours might work for an evening meal/relax, departing say 4pm and hotel by 10pm. With decent wifi and power you could probably push it to 7 or 8 hours, so maybe 1500 miles if it was high speed all the way.
A sleeper train (which probably wouldn't be high speed) would work at about 1000 miles in 12 hours, leave at 9PM after dinner, getting you there for shower, breakfast, and a 9AM meeting. Would beat a 6AM flight (so up at 4:30)
Agreed. When the option exists, it's so much nicer than flying.
At one point in my career I traveled from Amsterdam to various other European cities for 3-5 day work trips fairly frequently. Where direct overnight train connections existed, I would try and use those rather than get up for a 6am flight. For example Amsterdam - Copenhagen used to exist as an direct overnight connection. The cost for a private sleeper cabin with shower and breakfast was, I think, about €500 -- less than a flight + an extra hotel night. The trouble was getting my company to reimburse it, because it didn't fit neatly in their travel reimbursement policy's categories and rules.
These city groups would also work with French style TGVs
Miami to Orlando, Jacksonville, Atlanta
Seatle/Portland/Vancouver
SF/LA/San Diego/Vegas/Pheonix
With sleeper trains you can connect New York to Miami in 12 hours, LA to Seattle, Chicago to New Orleans. You need the trains to run at about 110mph, which is normal local line speed.
This is just the work side of things. What about family? A loved one is sick, or dies. Should I not travel to be with them, to help, to grieve with my family? Should I ask for a teleconference into the funeral?
The people arguing with you that they need to fly are almost certainly in places like the US, where even local trains are a pretty terrible, expensive experience relative to flying (or driving, on the shorter end).
I'm 90% of an anti-car zealot that lives in the densest city in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the US. I would love to be able to reasonably take a train when I travel, but the ticket prices are astronomical and the reliability is horrendous relative to buses, airplanes or driving costs.