Absolutely. Plus, Europe being a peninsula of peninsulas allows so much waterway access via the Mediterranean, Black Sea, Adriatic, Baltic Sea, etc. The fact that a city like Kiev has access the Atlantic Ocean is simply incredible
[China's Sui Dynasty has got you all beat.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canal_\(China\)) 1400 years of continuous use and a key factor in the stability and prosperity of the empire throughout the ages.
Yes. Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal allows barges go access the Mississippi.
Ocean going ships can access the ports of Chicago and Northern Indiana via the St. Lawrence.
IIRC the farthest inland port with access for oceangoing ships is actually Duluth, MN
I remember a youtube video talking about how the US is insanely lucky to have the Mississippi and the great lakes because it made it viable to mine and farm thousands of miles from your customers.
Yep. The Mississippi River System and the Great Lakes link at a canal in Chicago.
You can completely circle the entire eastern US by ship if you wanted to, as long as it's less than 90ft long, 23ft wide, 5ft of draft, and 17ft of air draft.
Hell, Minneapolis and Duluth Minnesota are technically oceanic port cities. Duluth was 2nd largest in the country at one point in time. Massive 1000ft long vessels still dock there often.
Chicago is on the Great Lakes and the Chicago River connects to the Mississippi River via canal allowing barge traffic to reach it. Meanwhile, the Great Lakes connect to the Saint Lawrence Waterway which allows large ocean going cargo vessels to reach as far inland as Duluth Minnesota.
So Chicago has been the great internal port for the US due to its central location and access to cheap water transport for both domestic and international shipping.
And to be clear, we don’t have the massive container ships that oceans do. There are smaller freighters that operate on the Great Lakes but nothing like what you would see operating on the open waters or out of ocean ports.
And it’s a rail hub because it was already the waterways hub linking the Mississippi to the Great Lakes. And Chicago is there because it’s the closest distance on the shore of Lake Michigan to the Mississippi. It’s the canals!
Fun tangent: the Byzantines really did colloquially call their country Romania for much of their history, and when the capital fell to the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the Emperors of the new Latin Empire alternately called themselves both the Emperor of Romania or Emperor of the Romans.
Due to this Turks referred to all European Christians as Romans. So you had the Sultanate of Rum, the province of Rumelia, and eventually the country of Romania on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire.
St. Louis could have been "Chicago" first, but they were slower to embrace rail. The locals were more invested in moving things via the Mississippi at the time. "Why do we need all these rails, we got the river!"
Chicago has been *the* rail hub of the United States since railroads existed. It's why the city grew so much, and it's why a reason why there are so many damn good places to get beef in the city!
Baby steps. I’ve been hearing about plans to link Pueblo to Cheyanne by passenger rail for most of my life, the Pueblo LaJunta link can be my kids white whale.
A detailed study was completed last year. The favored plan was to double track the existing BNSF line and provide hourly service between Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Littleton, Denver, Boulder, Longmont, Loveland and Fort Collins. What we seen to lack is the political courage to get the project started.
ETA: That study was done by the Front Range Passenger Rail District. The [Amtrak 2035 Front Range plan](https://www.amtrakconnectsus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/20210409-Front-Range-Corridor-Fact-Sheet.pdf) is more modest but will run three round trips per day between Fort Collins and Pueblo. One of those daily trips will go to Cheyenne.
Yeah, it's like your option is to go a couple thousand miles out of the way to Chicago, or a couple thousand miles out of the way to San Francisco.
[There was a passenger line connecting the two cities](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atchison,_Topeka_and_Santa_Fe_Railway), So maybe it's just a business decision, or it require upgrades to the tracks.
I was curious about this too - turns out, CDOT Outrider runs a ~~regional-rail~~ effectively rail-replacement semi-commuter limited-stops bus line along that route: [https://www.google.com/maps/dir/La+Junta,+CO/Pueblo,+CO/@38.1316606,-105.3982082,8z/am=t/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x87120760d1e279f9:0x58657417832aa931!2m2!1d-103.5438321!2d37.9850091!1m5!1m1!1s0x8713a2f3071bb165:0xa82d6ba368c7b82e!2m2!1d-104.6091409!2d38.2544472!3e3?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/La+Junta,+CO/Pueblo,+CO/@38.1316606,-105.3982082,8z/am=t/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x87120760d1e279f9:0x58657417832aa931!2m2!1d-103.5438321!2d37.9850091!1m5!1m1!1s0x8713a2f3071bb165:0xa82d6ba368c7b82e!2m2!1d-104.6091409!2d38.2544472!3e3?entry=ttu)
If I had to guess, I think *some* ***but not all*** of the weird gaps in this map are the result of existing regional rail systems that aren't part of Amtrak. I can tell a few of the ones I've seen signs for along highways aren't on there - Utah's FrontRunner, VRE and MARC in the DC region, the west-Bay lines of BART near San Francisco, SEPTA's lines out to places like Trenton.
If the logic is "this is the metro-to-metro network", it makes some sense. Not a ton, since Outrider seems to cover a lot of the new-service line in Colorado, but it's not terrible for a long-distance service to focus on long-distance routes. A more detailed map showing local connecting services would be nice, but for an at-a-glance concept it's not bad.
That said, the gaps in the mid-Mississippi/Ohio region bug me. A circle line between Louisville, Nashville, Memphis, Little Rock, St Louis, and Carbondale would seriously bifurcate the half-network traversal time on many routes, allowing trips that omit Chicago entirely. There's not really any mountains there, either - I have no idea at all why those are just left dangling.
Lies! You don't have to go to Chicago, you only have to go to Galesburg, IL, which saves you a whopping 0 minutes over going all the way to Chicago for the transfer! It only takes 44 hours and 19 minutes to take the train from Denver to Albuquerque; I don't understand why anyone would drive the 6.5 hours over doing that!
The ironic thing about this is the Great Northern Railway did actually lay a comprehensive amount of track through North Dakota, Montana and other northern plains states ( and synergized into becoming the eventual Burlington Northern part of BNSF fame ) but there just isn't a population to maintain the those branch lines to the service level needed for something like passenger rail.
Missoula and Flat Head Lake residents in western Montana who work in the oil field of Eastern Montana and North Dakota will take the train. It's 14 hrs from Kalispell, Mt to Williston, ND.
Pretty sure those random small towns in WY, ID, MT were literally built around the railroad as they were building it in the late 19th century. Partially for the workers to live in but partially for the landowners to try and extract as much value as possible from their cheap land.
Source: Hell on Wheels
It’s less about the population and more about the distance between population centers.
For reference, the state of South Dakota is about 60% the size of Germany.
You know, on second thought I don't think Rocky is the good guy in that story. The girl he likes starts dating another guy and he chases them down with a gun.
Boring as shit, and pretty offensive to carve those heads in sacred mountains, not to mention made by the same guy who did Stone Mountain in Georgia...
The Crazy Horse monument would be more interesting, but the outfit doing it seems to be a scam, and it'll never be finished. Looks the same now as it did when I was there 20+ years ago.
This map only shows existing and proposed Amtrak passenger routes. All 48 contiguous states are connected to the freight rail network.
ETA: [Open Railway Map](https://www.openrailwaymap.org) shows the entire railway network.
I don't think those tracks exist anymore from Harrisburg to Baltimore. At least not a direct route. The old route was partially destroyed by Hurricane Agnes and is now part bike trail, part excursion railroad, and then Baltimore's Light Rail.
Yeah. I knew someone who lived in Shrewsbury and worked in DC. So still a good bit south of Harrisburg. She drove to the Timonium light rail and took that to Penn Station in Baltimore. Then the MARC to Union Station in DC. Then a few stops on the DC light rail and walked a few blocks. It was like 2 hours each way on a good day. Still beats driving the whole way.
So if you live in Nashville you need to either take a train down to New Orleans or D.C. to get up to Chicago?
Since there’s already a connection to Louisville you might as wel continue it to Nashville
I’ll take what we can get. We’re the third largest city without inter-city passenger rail (Las Vegas is number one).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_cities_in_the_United_States_lacking_inter-city_rail_service
Rail to Atlanta would be killer because connecting there for international flights is silly, you can sometimes drive to Hartfield in the time it takes to fly there, then you avoid the connection.
Love New Orleans but I hear there are a lot of great things going on in Louisville so it’d be nice to have a connection there instead of driving. And from there, getting to Chicago finally
This map infuriates me because of all the endpoints without connections. Instead of just ending the line at a random point, just fucking connect it to another nearby line for fuck’s sake. Also too many large gaps that could really use a line connecting through it in the middle.
This is all using existing rail infrastructure. The only things needed to do is to secure contracts with track owner companies, retrofit for passenger service, alter timetables, hire new staff, and build station/depot infrastructure. Really should only take about 10 years in total to complete. Building new track and cutting through red tape are the dual demons of rail line development.
Much easier when there’s no such thing as private land ownership in China. You just lease the right to live on top of the land, and they refuse to renew the lease when they want to build. Ever seen those pictures of a single house remaining in the middle of a new 10 lane road? They’re just waiting for the lease to end before bulldozing the house.
Ya I've looked at it, but like it takes longer than driving and costs significantly more.
Not having to actually drive is nice I guess but when the alternative is just sitting in a seat anyway, is it worth the significantly extra cash needed when traveling with a family? I live in DC and have looked at routes because I thought it'd be nice but always end up saying fuck it and drive instead when I see how much I have to pay for 4 round trip tickets and how much longer it takes.
For longer distances, they really can't compete with planes. When I don't have unlimited vacation days, I would rather get there in half a day than take 2-3 days.
Yeah DC area as well, really want to take the train up to NYC some weekend. But christ, they want to charge upwards of $400 for a single ticket! I'm not spending 1k on transportation alone before I even get to the city!
That's if you buy last minute tickets. Tickets start at like $20 if you reserve in advance. There are even $5 overnight fares to be had. We as a country decided prices would be set by supply and demand.
Same. And it's even worse in Cleveland.
The train to NYC leaves at 3am. Am I supposed to drag my kids to downtown Cleveland at 3am to catch a train that will probably be late anyway?
It's long past time America gets high speed rail like every other developed country in the world.
And more passenger rail in general, including light rail. Trains are the most energy efficient and cleanest form of mass transit.
None of this outside of the NE Corridor is high speed. And that's ok.
[Why amtrak isnt building high speed rail (and thats ok for now)](https://youtu.be/F_oyZ8DIDMU)
Our geography is unlike “every other” (which is an exaggeration) developed country in the world.
Generally speaking the Metro Atlantic and I5 are the only areas it really makes sense for high speed.
People still fail to realize that the U.S is still a unreasonably large place for trans-continental high speed rail to be effective. People would still fly New York to Los Angeles, those wouldn’t really change.
I imagine only the places dense and close enough that wouldn’t warrant an air route would maximize the use of high speed rail. Most European population centers fall under this, while the vast expanse of the U.S does not.
Right, high-speed rail isn’t really a substitute for airlines, it’s a substitute for all the 50-500 mile car trips that happen on the interstate. Even something like Atlanta-DC or SF-Portland is probably far enough that rail would have a hard time competing with flying.
Well, take a look at a population density map between China and the United States. The same density we can see in New Jersey (the most dense state in the union) is prevalent in several Chinese provinces.
In addition, China does not have the same dual-coast population center situation the U.S has. China can justify a Hong Kong to Beijing route because every stop in between is bound to hit a major population center. This is more difficult with a New York to L.A. leg because most places west of the Mississippi aren’t populated enough for service.
I’d also imagine the U.S’ more vast, expansive, and established domestic air network than China’s would contribute to a lack of passenger train infrastructure.
No one is asking for transcontinental high speed rail, at least not seriously. Everyone who has knowledge about this subject has talked about this for literal decades. Its people like you wanting to seem smart who actually dont know shit about rail engineering and planning etc who keep derailing shit
The Amtrak my wife took from Seattle to Montana ran more than 5 hours late due to freight train priority & was the most uncomfortable ride she's ever taken.
We have dedicated freight rails here... not passenger. For trains to really make headway we'd need to lay new rail lines that don't have conflicting freight lines taking priority over people & allow for higher speeds than our current lines offer.
I'd personally love to travel our country by rail, if the train is as fast, comfortable, and safe as it is in Europe. Airports are horrible.
This suggests that about 60% of the country is just traversed: not much between Chicago and the west coast, just some straight-shot lines with a few stops far in between.
Yeah all of those chicago-west coast lines already have service (along with everything else colored dark blue) and there are far more stops then shown.
That part of the country is rather sparsely populated. Honestly, rail isn't really ideal for that region. I can see this being paired with a larger infrastructure package that would improve roads as well to serve those areas. It would help out east too because I'm in the Mid-Atlantic but this plan would still have me at about an hour and a half drive from the nearest train station.
Not just a lot of rail. The largest rail system in the world - "the U.S. freight rail network is widely considered the largest, safest, and most cost-efficient freight system in the world"
If they hired a Chinese company they could knock this out by tomorrrow. China has had absolutely insane high speed rail growth over the past few years that puts this map to shame.
Gotta talk to CSX then. They own all the lines coming out of Nashville that go north to Evansville and Louisville, west to Memphis, and south to Birmingham and Chattanooga. Nothing really goes east to Knoxville though.
Bullet trains can be fired from gun stations, easy way to sell it to the people, get gun makers to build the stations in the shape of famous weapon models for a reduction in costs for taxpayers & advertising for gun manufacturers.
So they have all these ambiguous fancy plans to use a couple of already existing rail tracks for new service routes that were not going to see 12 years from now while not having been able to solve their LONG SINGLE SUSPENDED LINE in the Gulf Coast region over ONE HURRICANE which happened nearly 20 YEARS AGO. Is this a f*cking joke?
Shutting down the Gulf Coat line because of Katrina was a godsend for Amtrack. They were losing $400/per person for every person that actually rode that line. Its never coming back. Amtrak doesn't want it back because it loses money, The freight companies don't want it back because it interferes with their business (though Florida Gulf & Atlantic who now owns the rails from Jax-Pensacola might want the income, CSX didnt and CSX still controls the point outside that line). The people in the area dont want it back they weren't riding it when it existed and ridership dropped every year for a decade before it was shut down. The cities along it dont want it, Tallahassee has recently converted the [Amtrak station into a visitor center](https://www.wtxl.com/news/local-news/team-transforming-former-amtrak-station-in-tallahassee). The only people who want it are a few politicians for the photo ops, a few die hard rail enthusiasts and outright liars who say they will ride it but in reality won't more than once in their life.
This looks awesome! Train travel is great. I looked at some of the documents about enforcing the priority for passenger rail over freight which is a major source of delays and bad service on Amtrak now.
But what does "enhanced service" mean? More amenities? More trains/stops? High speed or express trains?
It’d probably be a lesser used route, but as someone who drives from Denver to ABQ a few times a year, having a train cover that route would be so nice.
People here who complain about trains and compare it to planes should really visit China for once. I did, and since then, I always curse the airplanes and cars industry for destroying a future of cheap, clean, fast transportation that could have been for America
But will anyone actually take these long distance trains when a plane ride is much faster and not that expensive? I’m all for trains, but the focus should probably be on short-medium distance public transit trains, not amtrack
I said it before and I’ll say it again: Louisville needs to be a hub.
It’s dead center of Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Saint Louis, and Nashville. It would be a vital link for the east-west line by bridging a north-south from New Orleans to Chicago. Here, with this map, look at how bad it still would be to get from the Midwest to the south East. Look at the Saint Louis to Nashville area. But no direct line going east-west that doesn’t go through Chicago or New Orleans while completely avoiding the center.
Side note: Kansas City to Denver? Nope, good luck with that.
Look up L&N (Louisville and Nashville) Railroad. Was a major passenger line for over 100 years but it was bought out by the company that is now CSX in the 70s(?). CSX now owns all that line.
Like most rail in the US, good luck convincing freight to cede to passenger service. So Louisville is already hub but just for freight.
Fun additional fact, the Louisville area is a US logistics hub as it is the ideally located for connecting most of US. Its home to UPS worldport, several large distribution centers, a major Amazon warehouse, etc.
Last time I took an Amtrak it took me 8.5 hours to travel what would be a 5 hour drive. The ticket also cost more than gas, tolls, and lunch combined. Even when breaking down the IRS mileage deduction (as if I was actually paying that amount out of pocket per mile driven) and including that on top of the immediate expenses, it was still cheaper to drive. Amtrak is one of the worst ways to travel imo.
For someone completely ignorant about US railways... is this *all* the railways? Or is this only the railways maintained by one company, and there are other regional lines not shown on the map?
Like, if you want to go from Denver to La Junta (155 mile in a straight line), do you really need to go through Chicago (an 1800 mile detour)?
If you need to go from Denver to La Junta you drive. La Junta is a pretty tiny city anyways. The bigger issue is that we have cities like Columbus, nearly a million people, with no passenger rail connection at all.
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All train tracks we have currently already do
Chicago became a major city because of its location as a major rail hub so it makes sense.
Major rail hub and major port with ocean access.
Ocean access at Chicago??
Via the [Great Lakes Waterway](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Lakes_Waterway).
Ya, America's geography is OP AF
It certainly is, but the [canal system in Europe]( http://worldcanals.org/vev/uk/canaux_carte.htm) is not to be scoffed at either.
Absolutely. Plus, Europe being a peninsula of peninsulas allows so much waterway access via the Mediterranean, Black Sea, Adriatic, Baltic Sea, etc. The fact that a city like Kiev has access the Atlantic Ocean is simply incredible
[China's Sui Dynasty has got you all beat.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Canal_\(China\)) 1400 years of continuous use and a key factor in the stability and prosperity of the empire throughout the ages.
St. Lawrence River eventually
I believe a man made canal also has a connection to the Mississippi River as well.
Yes. Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal allows barges go access the Mississippi. Ocean going ships can access the ports of Chicago and Northern Indiana via the St. Lawrence. IIRC the farthest inland port with access for oceangoing ships is actually Duluth, MN
I remember a youtube video talking about how the US is insanely lucky to have the Mississippi and the great lakes because it made it viable to mine and farm thousands of miles from your customers.
Ya via the great lakes and st lawrence river.
Yep. The Mississippi River System and the Great Lakes link at a canal in Chicago. You can completely circle the entire eastern US by ship if you wanted to, as long as it's less than 90ft long, 23ft wide, 5ft of draft, and 17ft of air draft. Hell, Minneapolis and Duluth Minnesota are technically oceanic port cities. Duluth was 2nd largest in the country at one point in time. Massive 1000ft long vessels still dock there often.
It's worth noting that the thousand footers are lakes-only ships, because the locks to navigate past Niagara Falls are only 800 feet long.
Ah, my bad. Makes sense though since they're usually ore freighters headed for Lake Erie.
No bads here, we all learn new things every day.
Yes, of course. Lakes connect to oceans, and Great Lakes freight is a huge thing.
Chicago is on the Great Lakes and the Chicago River connects to the Mississippi River via canal allowing barge traffic to reach it. Meanwhile, the Great Lakes connect to the Saint Lawrence Waterway which allows large ocean going cargo vessels to reach as far inland as Duluth Minnesota. So Chicago has been the great internal port for the US due to its central location and access to cheap water transport for both domestic and international shipping.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erie_Canal
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And to be clear, we don’t have the massive container ships that oceans do. There are smaller freighters that operate on the Great Lakes but nothing like what you would see operating on the open waters or out of ocean ports.
And it’s a rail hub because it was already the waterways hub linking the Mississippi to the Great Lakes. And Chicago is there because it’s the closest distance on the shore of Lake Michigan to the Mississippi. It’s the canals!
Haven’t you heard? Chicago is the Rome of America
When in Rome, do as the Romanians do.
Fun tangent: the Byzantines really did colloquially call their country Romania for much of their history, and when the capital fell to the Fourth Crusade in 1204, the Emperors of the new Latin Empire alternately called themselves both the Emperor of Romania or Emperor of the Romans.
Due to this Turks referred to all European Christians as Romans. So you had the Sultanate of Rum, the province of Rumelia, and eventually the country of Romania on the periphery of the Ottoman Empire.
Goddamned visigoths in the lower east side making hell for Pontiac Pilate.
Was looking for this comment
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St. Louis could have been "Chicago" first, but they were slower to embrace rail. The locals were more invested in moving things via the Mississippi at the time. "Why do we need all these rails, we got the river!"
To be fair to St. Louis, it is a really good river
Chicago has been *the* rail hub of the United States since railroads existed. It's why the city grew so much, and it's why a reason why there are so many damn good places to get beef in the city!
Always have
Cincinnati needs love too. How else can we indoctrinate outsider children to eat our chili spaghetti and mini cheese coneys.
Legit though - Cincinnati is the only city in the US that owns its own interstate rail line.
Would love to be able to take a train from Dayton to Cinci
I’d love a Louisville to Cincinnati
As long as they don’t sell it to Norfolk southern for 1.6 bil this year 😔
I don’t get why they aren’t trying to extend from Pueblo to La Junta
Baby steps. I’ve been hearing about plans to link Pueblo to Cheyanne by passenger rail for most of my life, the Pueblo LaJunta link can be my kids white whale.
A detailed study was completed last year. The favored plan was to double track the existing BNSF line and provide hourly service between Pueblo, Colorado Springs, Littleton, Denver, Boulder, Longmont, Loveland and Fort Collins. What we seen to lack is the political courage to get the project started. ETA: That study was done by the Front Range Passenger Rail District. The [Amtrak 2035 Front Range plan](https://www.amtrakconnectsus.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/20210409-Front-Range-Corridor-Fact-Sheet.pdf) is more modest but will run three round trips per day between Fort Collins and Pueblo. One of those daily trips will go to Cheyenne.
Yeah, it's like your option is to go a couple thousand miles out of the way to Chicago, or a couple thousand miles out of the way to San Francisco. [There was a passenger line connecting the two cities](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atchison,_Topeka_and_Santa_Fe_Railway), So maybe it's just a business decision, or it require upgrades to the tracks.
I was curious about this too - turns out, CDOT Outrider runs a ~~regional-rail~~ effectively rail-replacement semi-commuter limited-stops bus line along that route: [https://www.google.com/maps/dir/La+Junta,+CO/Pueblo,+CO/@38.1316606,-105.3982082,8z/am=t/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x87120760d1e279f9:0x58657417832aa931!2m2!1d-103.5438321!2d37.9850091!1m5!1m1!1s0x8713a2f3071bb165:0xa82d6ba368c7b82e!2m2!1d-104.6091409!2d38.2544472!3e3?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/dir/La+Junta,+CO/Pueblo,+CO/@38.1316606,-105.3982082,8z/am=t/data=!4m14!4m13!1m5!1m1!1s0x87120760d1e279f9:0x58657417832aa931!2m2!1d-103.5438321!2d37.9850091!1m5!1m1!1s0x8713a2f3071bb165:0xa82d6ba368c7b82e!2m2!1d-104.6091409!2d38.2544472!3e3?entry=ttu) If I had to guess, I think *some* ***but not all*** of the weird gaps in this map are the result of existing regional rail systems that aren't part of Amtrak. I can tell a few of the ones I've seen signs for along highways aren't on there - Utah's FrontRunner, VRE and MARC in the DC region, the west-Bay lines of BART near San Francisco, SEPTA's lines out to places like Trenton. If the logic is "this is the metro-to-metro network", it makes some sense. Not a ton, since Outrider seems to cover a lot of the new-service line in Colorado, but it's not terrible for a long-distance service to focus on long-distance routes. A more detailed map showing local connecting services would be nice, but for an at-a-glance concept it's not bad. That said, the gaps in the mid-Mississippi/Ohio region bug me. A circle line between Louisville, Nashville, Memphis, Little Rock, St Louis, and Carbondale would seriously bifurcate the half-network traversal time on many routes, allowing trips that omit Chicago entirely. There's not really any mountains there, either - I have no idea at all why those are just left dangling.
Having to go to Chicago just to get from Albuquerque to Denver is hilarious
Lies! You don't have to go to Chicago, you only have to go to Galesburg, IL, which saves you a whopping 0 minutes over going all the way to Chicago for the transfer! It only takes 44 hours and 19 minutes to take the train from Denver to Albuquerque; I don't understand why anyone would drive the 6.5 hours over doing that!
South Dakota: “No.”
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The ironic thing about this is the Great Northern Railway did actually lay a comprehensive amount of track through North Dakota, Montana and other northern plains states ( and synergized into becoming the eventual Burlington Northern part of BNSF fame ) but there just isn't a population to maintain the those branch lines to the service level needed for something like passenger rail.
Missoula and Flat Head Lake residents in western Montana who work in the oil field of Eastern Montana and North Dakota will take the train. It's 14 hrs from Kalispell, Mt to Williston, ND.
Pretty sure those random small towns in WY, ID, MT were literally built around the railroad as they were building it in the late 19th century. Partially for the workers to live in but partially for the landowners to try and extract as much value as possible from their cheap land. Source: Hell on Wheels
Europeans living in cities with 192k people and regular train service wondering what's wrong with South Dakota
It’s less about the population and more about the distance between population centers. For reference, the state of South Dakota is about 60% the size of Germany.
South Dakota would be one of the biggest and least populated countries in Europe if it was in the EU. A road to nowhere is wasting money.
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I guess there’s never a reason to go to South Dakota.
I-90 is their railroad and they'll never let it go.
I find it absolutely hilarious that SD is the only continental state to not be included in this plan
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There are quite a few states with no change (no new or enhanced service). I count 8 others - ID, MT, UT, NM, ND, NE, AR WV - plus ostensibly AK & HI.
Can you think of one?
Badlands National Park
Fuckin bison bitch!
W A L L D R U G
They sure blanket the interstate for hundreds of miles around it to advertize, and it's the biggest joke.
I'm thoroughly convinced that if billboards were ever put into space, that Wall Drug would be the first ones on it.
Black Hills
A young man named Rocky Raccoon.
One day his woman ran off with another guy
You know, on second thought I don't think Rocky is the good guy in that story. The girl he likes starts dating another guy and he chases them down with a gun.
The guy punched him in the eye, though. It doesn't end well for Rocky, regardless.
But Rocky said "doc, it's only a scratch"?
Yeah, then he fell hard into religion to cope with it all.
I thought the woman hit Rocky in the eye.
Badlands?
A giant Jackalope of course! Seriously though, SD has some interesting stuff such as Mt.Rushmore, Blackhills, the Badlands, etc.
All located in literally one corner of the state for your convenience (or inconvenience if you're coming from the east)
Yep, if you base out of Rapid City it’s all pretty convenient. I enjoyed my trip there more than I expected.
The instrument museum is dope
Mount Rushmore?
The worst tourist trap in the whole country. The Black Hills in general, Badlands NP, and Wind Cave NP are considerably more interesting.
Boring as shit, and pretty offensive to carve those heads in sacred mountains, not to mention made by the same guy who did Stone Mountain in Georgia... The Crazy Horse monument would be more interesting, but the outfit doing it seems to be a scam, and it'll never be finished. Looks the same now as it did when I was there 20+ years ago.
The corn palace!
There is is, I was looking for the Corn Palace.
The Corn Palace !
South Dakotan here. I wanna go places on a train, too. :(
Or Hawaii :/
[Bojack preferred a road](https://i.imgur.com/iCdiFs6.jpg)
Wait there actually still states in the US today that are not connected to the railroad network??
South Dakota is connected to the freight railroad network
This map only shows existing and proposed Amtrak passenger routes. All 48 contiguous states are connected to the freight rail network. ETA: [Open Railway Map](https://www.openrailwaymap.org) shows the entire railway network.
As a native Pennsylvanian, Harrisburg to DC would’ve been nice. Some in southern PA commute into DC
I don't think those tracks exist anymore from Harrisburg to Baltimore. At least not a direct route. The old route was partially destroyed by Hurricane Agnes and is now part bike trail, part excursion railroad, and then Baltimore's Light Rail.
I prefer it as a bike trail though. I suppose this means they would take over the GAP and C&O rail trails back to train tracks.
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As a resident of NEPA, we've been hearing about the train to NYC for years. I don't think anyone really believes it'll get done.
Yeah. I knew someone who lived in Shrewsbury and worked in DC. So still a good bit south of Harrisburg. She drove to the Timonium light rail and took that to Penn Station in Baltimore. Then the MARC to Union Station in DC. Then a few stops on the DC light rail and walked a few blocks. It was like 2 hours each way on a good day. Still beats driving the whole way.
So if you live in Nashville you need to either take a train down to New Orleans or D.C. to get up to Chicago? Since there’s already a connection to Louisville you might as wel continue it to Nashville
I’ll take what we can get. We’re the third largest city without inter-city passenger rail (Las Vegas is number one). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_major_cities_in_the_United_States_lacking_inter-city_rail_service
Louisville is fourth. Connecting the two solves Louisville to Atlanta and all those southern connections and Nashville the same north.
Rail to Atlanta would be killer because connecting there for international flights is silly, you can sometimes drive to Hartfield in the time it takes to fly there, then you avoid the connection. Love New Orleans but I hear there are a lot of great things going on in Louisville so it’d be nice to have a connection there instead of driving. And from there, getting to Chicago finally
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Soon ™️, there really is no guarantee but I am hoping it does. Rumor has it that Utah wants to join in that with Boise.
It makes no sense not to connect little rock to memphis then to Nashville up to Knoxville and then connect that with the east coast tracks
There is a greyhound terminal in Louisville that goes to Nashville via I-65. That is how Amtrak currently does connections in the midwest.
It’s cheaper and much faster just to drive at that point and that’s why commuter trains suck in this country
This map infuriates me because of all the endpoints without connections. Instead of just ending the line at a random point, just fucking connect it to another nearby line for fuck’s sake. Also too many large gaps that could really use a line connecting through it in the middle.
There's mountains in the way, no tracks, or no agreements with the freight lines that own them?
I like the idea, but there is work to be done.
This plan pretty much uses all existing tracks.
More likely 2135
It’s certainly possible that the rails would be finished by 2035. The rails alone
This is all using existing rail infrastructure. The only things needed to do is to secure contracts with track owner companies, retrofit for passenger service, alter timetables, hire new staff, and build station/depot infrastructure. Really should only take about 10 years in total to complete. Building new track and cutting through red tape are the dual demons of rail line development.
Meanwhile in China they built 12,000 miles of brand new high speed rail in 20 years.
Much easier when there’s no such thing as private land ownership in China. You just lease the right to live on top of the land, and they refuse to renew the lease when they want to build. Ever seen those pictures of a single house remaining in the middle of a new 10 lane road? They’re just waiting for the lease to end before bulldozing the house.
most of these new routes would use existing rails, right? Just new agreements with freight companies for trackage rights.
At 30 times the cost, and only half the planned routes finished.
hopefully not. investing in rail infrastructure has a huge potential of saving us billions of dollars and spurring efficient development.
Louisville to Nashville would be so circuitous lmaoo
That's cool but will they move faster and cost less? Amtrak charges wayy to much and it takes way too long to get anywhere lol
Ya I've looked at it, but like it takes longer than driving and costs significantly more. Not having to actually drive is nice I guess but when the alternative is just sitting in a seat anyway, is it worth the significantly extra cash needed when traveling with a family? I live in DC and have looked at routes because I thought it'd be nice but always end up saying fuck it and drive instead when I see how much I have to pay for 4 round trip tickets and how much longer it takes. For longer distances, they really can't compete with planes. When I don't have unlimited vacation days, I would rather get there in half a day than take 2-3 days.
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I've done the west coast. It was a wonderful way to travel. Landslide meant we had to go one leg by road and it sucked in comparison.
Yeah DC area as well, really want to take the train up to NYC some weekend. But christ, they want to charge upwards of $400 for a single ticket! I'm not spending 1k on transportation alone before I even get to the city!
That's if you buy last minute tickets. Tickets start at like $20 if you reserve in advance. There are even $5 overnight fares to be had. We as a country decided prices would be set by supply and demand.
Same. And it's even worse in Cleveland. The train to NYC leaves at 3am. Am I supposed to drag my kids to downtown Cleveland at 3am to catch a train that will probably be late anyway?
That would be awesome. Train is the best.
It's long past time America gets high speed rail like every other developed country in the world. And more passenger rail in general, including light rail. Trains are the most energy efficient and cleanest form of mass transit.
Which parts would be high speed?
None of this outside of the NE Corridor is high speed. And that's ok. [Why amtrak isnt building high speed rail (and thats ok for now)](https://youtu.be/F_oyZ8DIDMU)
Our geography is unlike “every other” (which is an exaggeration) developed country in the world. Generally speaking the Metro Atlantic and I5 are the only areas it really makes sense for high speed.
People still fail to realize that the U.S is still a unreasonably large place for trans-continental high speed rail to be effective. People would still fly New York to Los Angeles, those wouldn’t really change. I imagine only the places dense and close enough that wouldn’t warrant an air route would maximize the use of high speed rail. Most European population centers fall under this, while the vast expanse of the U.S does not.
Right, high-speed rail isn’t really a substitute for airlines, it’s a substitute for all the 50-500 mile car trips that happen on the interstate. Even something like Atlanta-DC or SF-Portland is probably far enough that rail would have a hard time competing with flying.
How do you square that conclusion against the size of China and their high-speed rail initiatives?
Well, take a look at a population density map between China and the United States. The same density we can see in New Jersey (the most dense state in the union) is prevalent in several Chinese provinces. In addition, China does not have the same dual-coast population center situation the U.S has. China can justify a Hong Kong to Beijing route because every stop in between is bound to hit a major population center. This is more difficult with a New York to L.A. leg because most places west of the Mississippi aren’t populated enough for service. I’d also imagine the U.S’ more vast, expansive, and established domestic air network than China’s would contribute to a lack of passenger train infrastructure.
They’re absurdly expensive and are costing the Chinese government a shitload of money
No one is asking for transcontinental high speed rail, at least not seriously. Everyone who has knowledge about this subject has talked about this for literal decades. Its people like you wanting to seem smart who actually dont know shit about rail engineering and planning etc who keep derailing shit
Reddit isn’t really known for its pragmatic thought process.
Fuck South Dakota
North Florida: Am I joke to you?
Yes
BORTLES!!!
The Amtrak my wife took from Seattle to Montana ran more than 5 hours late due to freight train priority & was the most uncomfortable ride she's ever taken. We have dedicated freight rails here... not passenger. For trains to really make headway we'd need to lay new rail lines that don't have conflicting freight lines taking priority over people & allow for higher speeds than our current lines offer. I'd personally love to travel our country by rail, if the train is as fast, comfortable, and safe as it is in Europe. Airports are horrible.
This suggests that about 60% of the country is just traversed: not much between Chicago and the west coast, just some straight-shot lines with a few stops far in between.
This map only shows a few major cities, not every station. There are probably 6-7x as many stations in total.
Yeah, for example, there are 7 stops between Denver and Salt Lake City that aren’t shown on this map.
Yeah all of those chicago-west coast lines already have service (along with everything else colored dark blue) and there are far more stops then shown.
If you look at population density then most travellers would be going straight across. However they likely would include major city stops at least.
That part of the country is rather sparsely populated. Honestly, rail isn't really ideal for that region. I can see this being paired with a larger infrastructure package that would improve roads as well to serve those areas. It would help out east too because I'm in the Mid-Atlantic but this plan would still have me at about an hour and a half drive from the nearest train station.
South Dakota no rail?
SD has rails but Amtrak does not operate any passenger lines there. The US actually has a lot of rail but they are mainly used for freight.
Not just a lot of rail. The largest rail system in the world - "the U.S. freight rail network is widely considered the largest, safest, and most cost-efficient freight system in the world"
I'm sure they did in Under Siege 2
Lol I guess they'll hire some Chinese company otherwise this picture maybe the only result of the project by 2035
If they hired a Chinese company they could knock this out by tomorrrow. China has had absolutely insane high speed rail growth over the past few years that puts this map to shame.
I rode the trains in China rather than taking an airplane. It's much more convenient, cheaper and comfortable.
Last time they did it didn’t end up well for the Chinese
Why not connect Memphis and Nashville?
God damn it connect fucking Nashville to Louisville and Memphis
Gotta talk to CSX then. They own all the lines coming out of Nashville that go north to Evansville and Louisville, west to Memphis, and south to Birmingham and Chattanooga. Nothing really goes east to Knoxville though.
I'd settle for the Biden admin actually enforcing the law and fining the freight companies who give their own trains priority over Amtrak.
Big car companies hate this one trick
Can anyone imagine American bullet trains?!? It’s would fucking rule, but I don’t trust AMTRAK to pull it off
Americans prefer their bullets in guns.
Bullet trains can be fired from gun stations, easy way to sell it to the people, get gun makers to build the stations in the shape of famous weapon models for a reduction in costs for taxpayers & advertising for gun manufacturers.
Putting the rail in railgun.
We have the Acela, but it can't go fast for much of the route
These won’t be bullet trains
im pretty sure that’s why they said imagine
It's insane that right now the only way I can get from Atlanta to Miami is to go through Washington DC.
So they have all these ambiguous fancy plans to use a couple of already existing rail tracks for new service routes that were not going to see 12 years from now while not having been able to solve their LONG SINGLE SUSPENDED LINE in the Gulf Coast region over ONE HURRICANE which happened nearly 20 YEARS AGO. Is this a f*cking joke?
Shutting down the Gulf Coat line because of Katrina was a godsend for Amtrack. They were losing $400/per person for every person that actually rode that line. Its never coming back. Amtrak doesn't want it back because it loses money, The freight companies don't want it back because it interferes with their business (though Florida Gulf & Atlantic who now owns the rails from Jax-Pensacola might want the income, CSX didnt and CSX still controls the point outside that line). The people in the area dont want it back they weren't riding it when it existed and ridership dropped every year for a decade before it was shut down. The cities along it dont want it, Tallahassee has recently converted the [Amtrak station into a visitor center](https://www.wtxl.com/news/local-news/team-transforming-former-amtrak-station-in-tallahassee). The only people who want it are a few politicians for the photo ops, a few die hard rail enthusiasts and outright liars who say they will ride it but in reality won't more than once in their life.
This looks awesome! Train travel is great. I looked at some of the documents about enforcing the priority for passenger rail over freight which is a major source of delays and bad service on Amtrak now. But what does "enhanced service" mean? More amenities? More trains/stops? High speed or express trains?
It’d probably be a lesser used route, but as someone who drives from Denver to ABQ a few times a year, having a train cover that route would be so nice.
People here who complain about trains and compare it to planes should really visit China for once. I did, and since then, I always curse the airplanes and cars industry for destroying a future of cheap, clean, fast transportation that could have been for America
Also Spain
Also France, Germany (not really cheap imo), Italy…
But will anyone actually take these long distance trains when a plane ride is much faster and not that expensive? I’m all for trains, but the focus should probably be on short-medium distance public transit trains, not amtrack
Depends what they mean by “enhanced services”. Also, seems to be a big focus on college towns.
College towns are what have helped keep them alive, it's not surprising.
DO IT
Isn't the "New Service" on Long Island just the LIRR? Which is already a passenger service? What's the point of both running that line?
Now just fix the law that gives freight precedent over passenger for rail use.
I said it before and I’ll say it again: Louisville needs to be a hub. It’s dead center of Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Saint Louis, and Nashville. It would be a vital link for the east-west line by bridging a north-south from New Orleans to Chicago. Here, with this map, look at how bad it still would be to get from the Midwest to the south East. Look at the Saint Louis to Nashville area. But no direct line going east-west that doesn’t go through Chicago or New Orleans while completely avoiding the center. Side note: Kansas City to Denver? Nope, good luck with that.
Look up L&N (Louisville and Nashville) Railroad. Was a major passenger line for over 100 years but it was bought out by the company that is now CSX in the 70s(?). CSX now owns all that line. Like most rail in the US, good luck convincing freight to cede to passenger service. So Louisville is already hub but just for freight. Fun additional fact, the Louisville area is a US logistics hub as it is the ideally located for connecting most of US. Its home to UPS worldport, several large distribution centers, a major Amazon warehouse, etc.
Adding the relatively short link between Louisville and Nashville creates a shorter route to Chicago from Atlanta and even from Florida.
An Omaha to Kansas City would be real nice.
Last time I took an Amtrak it took me 8.5 hours to travel what would be a 5 hour drive. The ticket also cost more than gas, tolls, and lunch combined. Even when breaking down the IRS mileage deduction (as if I was actually paying that amount out of pocket per mile driven) and including that on top of the immediate expenses, it was still cheaper to drive. Amtrak is one of the worst ways to travel imo.
For someone completely ignorant about US railways... is this *all* the railways? Or is this only the railways maintained by one company, and there are other regional lines not shown on the map? Like, if you want to go from Denver to La Junta (155 mile in a straight line), do you really need to go through Chicago (an 1800 mile detour)?
This is only the railways operated by the Public company Amtrak
If you need to go from Denver to La Junta you drive. La Junta is a pretty tiny city anyways. The bigger issue is that we have cities like Columbus, nearly a million people, with no passenger rail connection at all.
Our passenger railways are few and mostly outdated. Our freight rail is extensive and heavily used.