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Isn't this circular reasoning? Rails are terrible, so nobody uses them, hence nobody invests, hence poor ROI. Roads are heavily invested, so are usable to the point it is uneconomical to use any alternative, so roads get more investment, etc.

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Plenty of people use rail in the US just for carrying goods instead of people. It turns out trains are most efficient at hauling large loads with high tolerances for latency, which humans are not and do not have.

I would like to direct your attention to Europe where they can do both and the passenger train service is extremely well run and used widely.

Except busses and airplane flights tend to be much cheaper than train tickets there (excluding subways/local trains). If trains were so efficient that would likely be shown in the pricing.

While in Spain for several months it was only economical for me to take a train a single time. It was several times more expensive than the alternatives in every other case. This left me either flying or bussing.

In Stockholm it's actually cheaper to take a bus to the airport than the train, and that's just local travel.

because trains pylay for railways but busses dont pay for the road

That's not necessarily true. Fuel taxes and registration pay for road construction and most railway construction is heavily subsidized by governments.

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