Greentext

The monkey paw grants your wish but all the trains are built by Boeing.

Yeah, but i can get shit faced at the airport and on the plane, but i do that in a train and people start throwing coins at me

I'm not sure about other countries but one thing Amtrak has over planes is that they're more disability accessible. Still making improvements on legacy equipment but they're under the ADA, whereas airlines lobbied themselves out of it, which is why they never bothered to create wheelchair spaces or accessible bathrooms or even seats a normal human can occupy comfortably.

As someone who boycotted the TSA for like 5 years and only took Amtrak, the tickets are not always cheaper. I mean sure, you can get across the country for like $100.

Even when I was doing Boston-Baltimore on the Acela, it was routinely slightly cheaper to fly.

Are they stupid?
(Yes)

I fly because it's fast, not because I like airplanes. Even the fastest train is way too slow to replace a plane for a long-distance trip. Then for shorter distances cars win out because of how convenient they are. There's no niche for passenger trains except for commuting into urban areas with no parking.

It doesn't help that in the USA train tickets seem to cost more than plane tickets. I think I'd still usually fly even if the train was free, so I'm certainly not going to pay extra for a slower method of transportation even if it is a little more comfortable.

Not to shit on your perfectly reasonable parade, but in Germany there is high speed rail through the whole . takes about 6 hours from top to bottom.

Now look at the scale of the US versus Germany and then the density of people living there. High speed rail makes alot of sense where it's difficult to build (bosnywash) and does not scale well in terms of time spent traveling.

Its better than car, but won't replace air travel anytime soon. Sadly.

If high speed rail becomes popular, all that stands between the current freedom and ID-required tickets and fingering by agents is one terrorist attack, staged or not.

Cuz of all the issues that come with laying rail lines. Eminent Domain has somehow become even more unpopular as of late. And guess what building rail lines requires?