I think it’s easy to call something out as primitive but what changes could be made and how much impact would it have? It doesn’t seem like our freight trains are the bottleneck when moving goods around the country.
The US is perfect for rail - lots of long trips, with lots of goods. It could probably have more market share if goods could move more quickly and flexibly.
US: 45% road, 38% rail, 17% other (water/pipeline)
France: 75% road, 15% rail, 10% other
Germany: 62% road, 25% rail, 18% other
Spain: 92% road, 4% rail, 4% other
EU: 76% road, 19% rail, 5% other
[1] https://stats.oecd.org/BrandedView.aspx?oecd_bv_id=trsprt-da...
[2] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...
The fact is the us could do better, pointing to Europe which could also do better is moot.