Americans don’t Understand Passenger Trains

Go outside and touch train.

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[alanthefisher]

This video was meant to be viewed with my other Armchair Urbanist videos, as they go into more detail as to *why* trains disappeared and why Americans are left with the system that we have today. I did not state clearly in the video that this one builds off of the others, so that's my mistake. But please if you have the time, check the other ones out.

[YaluenL]

Was kind of expecting an in-depth history on why passenger trains didn't take off in America, but then I realized this was a 5 minute video.

[stephenhodgson]

The history of rail in Europe and the US is very, very different. In Europe rail was built to link existing cities and towns to each other. Much of the US rail system was to encourage the settling of the interior. Rail companies in the US were given huge areas of land not only to build a line but also to develop population centres in the interior.

[paulstubbs]

I heard of a tale from England, A town mayor, dissatisfied with the road he drove on every day to come to town, decided they needed a major upgrade.
To get this approved, he had to have a referendum with the town's people. In doing this he had to provide at least one alternative, so he chose the rail line.
The referendum was run, and to his dismay, the majority voted for the railway!

[peeyushverma]

As a person living in India, it's almost unimaginable to see someone going long distances by road...cause if we have to cross 3-4 cities, we usually use trains. Heck, there are people who use trains daily just to go to their jobs

[rjb-bp]

This video gave me a whole new perspective. I lived in New Jersey my whole life and I never realized just how rare high-speed rail was in the US. As a kid, I was always used to the fast amtrak trains buzzing by my neighborhood and and how often my family took the train. Great stuff

i think you underestimate just how impressive a functioning public transit system is to someone who doesn't normally have access to one.

getting to experience a reliable bus, metro, and passenger train system for the first time were *the* most fond memories i had when visiting a metropolis and a european country. i couldn't shut up about how cool it was that i didn't have to rent a car to just take a daytrip to a different town, and that i could go bar-hopping downtown and still get home safely.

it was also clear that the cities were much more bikeable and walkable, once i realize the town wasn't blazingly hot, designed for pedestrians, and not filled with hostile car drivers who roll coal on you.

i wasn't even a transit nerd, not in the slightest. i was just excited about a positive experience in which it was obvious transit accessibility was one of the major factors in my being able to have a good.

[Tasmantor]

As an Aussie I cry for a high-speed rail link, at least for the big eastern cities. If we had it we could stop a huge amount of flying

[zenobiaw]

My husband is from Germany. He lived there for decades without a driver's license or a car, because he simply didn't need them. When I was there, it was rather fun exploring the country via passenger trains and subways (Berlin). Moving to the U.S forced my husband to obtain his driver's license, but whenever we can, we take passenger trains, which is rare in the PNW. We can really only do so in Seattle or Portland. I think that a lot of people would use them if they existed. But as long as they don't, we will just continue on down path of over clogged streets, pollution, bad drivers and road rage.

[tina_belmont-softegg]

I was kinda expecting you to explain how trains work for all of the people who don't understand how trains work, instead of just saying they don't understand how trains work over and over.

[camjkerman]

It's very strange to me- a Brit- that there are people who have never been on a train before, let alone see them every day, and use them regularly. I'm a 17 minute walk from my nearest train station, and it serves my town of 104, 000 in the South East with 7 trains hourly, taking between 45 and 90 minutes to get to central London. Indeed, even in the UK, I've heard people herald their driving license as their ticket to freedom, but using the trains independently since 13 years old, it's a well connected, well run, frequent, and fast rail system that truly grants freedom.

[thawhiteazn]

It actually depresses me how unlikely it seems that were I live will ever actually have a decent transit system. People always like “it’s not dense enough to justify trains”. Not it’s not dense enough precisely because we don’t use trains and everyone needs a car which requires space for parking which makes cities unwalkable which makes cars even more required which... It’s a feedback loop of inefficient transit and land use.

[the_neutral_container]

I once waited in line in Vienna and behind me was this Californian dude talking about his experiences in Europe and he actually said "So many new things. Never been on a train before" :-o (Not to play into stereotypes – it wasn't his fault for not having trains available and he sounded genuinely happy to have made the discovery). That was in 2013, so things may have changed a bit.

[kenj]

I was going to nitpick the "No Trains" map. But then I saw the zoomed in version, and saw that my city (St. Louis) was carefully excluded from the blue section due to the route to Chicago - the one rail route in the US I've managed to use.

[EnjoyFirefighting]

The biggest issue I see in the US: even if passenger trains would connect smaller villages and towns to larger towns and cities, there's still a lack of local public transit to actually cover both the doorstep to station distance and the station to your destination distance as well. That circumstance makes taking the train much less relevant and interesting...

[decqukl]

After moving from the US to the UK, I can’t express in words how nice it is to buy a ticket easily online, hop on a spacious train, and watch the landscape roll by to your destination.

Plus train stations make you feel like a king when you arrive, airports make you feel like livestock

[tokyo_taxi]

Believe me, I understood why Japan was so pleasant to be in because of their amazing rail system. I totally fell in love with Japanese trains and miss them terribly.

[罪のアリス]

There was a time in the US where train lines went everywhere. However, the age of the automobile prompted the derailing of the US.

[RingingResonance]

My friends: "I can't wait until we get high speed rail where we live! 60 - 80mph would be great!"

Me: "Steam locomotives of the 1920's would regularly break 120mph"

[donparkison]

In the early 1990's it was cheaper to ride a train from Denver to Seattle than it was to fly. I rode, Denver - Boise, Denver - San Francisco, Denver - Portland / Seattle, not just for leisure but for cost. It was wonderful. Now its a lot more expensive to take the same trips by rail than fly. Kind of sad.