I am more excited by rail than flying, and I know other Millennials that are as well. I thought it was starting to come back into vogue.
Flight is much more convenient and in most instances cheaper.
And that’s a big deal when people don’t have 4+ weeks of vacation per year.
I get the attraction—just took the sleeper from London to Edinburgh—but it just doesn’t make sense for routine travel outside of a few relatively short routes like the northeast.
I usually avoid flying when equivalent land transport is available and will take less than 8 hours, since it seems like a waste of fuel, but trains are absolutely not exciting when you're sitting in a 40 year old carriage lumbering along uncambered track at the same speed as freight.
No. Geography.
American population centres are disparate. Comparisons to Europe, with its tightly-packed industrial centres among centuries-old farms, are silly.
Even though we were 13.5 hours late (due to weather outside Omaha), it was a great experience and I'd love to do it again.
I've been severely delayed on an Amtrak train as well, and IMO that's part of disconnecting. Depending on the train, you might have no Wi-Fi, no cellphone signal, and no control over when you get to your destination. Just need to relax, look at the scenery, and have a drink from the cafe car.
This sounds like cyclical political pressure brought about when anti-train politicians are elected. It's virtue signaling. As for the underlying problem: imagine if interstate highways and airports were subjected to local property taxes the way rail infrastructure is.... conversely, imagine if the government built out high-speed rail infrastructure as aggressively as it did high-speed auto and air infrastructure....