How come trains in the USA are so "old" fashion compared to the trains in Europe?

Question

Trains in France for example. Fast and smooth. In the USA the trains are slow and tracks are uneven. ( The trains sway side to side) USA trains are dirty and rail yards have a lot of crime. Why is the USA so far behind?

Answer 1

More interest in personal transportation in the US, the car.

The trains here are for commuters and no luxury. Just utilitarian transit.

Answer 2

Use of train travel here is very limited except for Northeast Corridor, and local commuter lines.

For long distance, Southwest Airlines and Jet Blue and other low cost airlines are the choice.

Philadelphia to Chicago by train, 18 hours, Phila to Chicago by air, 1 1/2 hrs. That's the reason.

Answer 3

Ding Bat is right on the money.

Class I right of way is Laser leveled in most instances.  Passenger service is not practical in the US.  There is much more distance to be traveled than in the UK or the smaller European nations.  There, high speed passenger travel is much more in demand and a viable alternative to automobile or plane.

As far as freight operations go, the Railroads of North America are in pretty good shape with the technology in place to run some of the heaviest tonnage to be found on a single train, with but a couple of exceptions, and these are found in dedicated service, such as iron ore hauling railroads. Though I have major misgivings about the wisdom of doing so.

The railroads of America, and those who work on them in any department, as far back as the beginning, wrote the book on mountain railroading with tonnage trains.  Considering the feats of Theodor Judah, who wouldn't let a little thing like the Sierra Nevada Mountains deter him, and the people who followed his trail, this is demonstrated clearly, as well as with Dodge and the Union Pacific on their way west, conquering desert and that other mountain range, The Rockies.

Freight is here to stay, and the constant infusions of major cash injected into the veins of Amtrak national operations should come to an end.  Flog that horse all ya want, but it will always be neither popular nor profitable, and it should be euthanized.

Answer 4

Matter of profitability. European trains are subsidized by the gov't, epecially passenger trains. Our freight trains are more efficient than most of the ones i have seen in Europe but there again, $$$ spells it out. That is where the profit is, hauling freight. In Europe there are separate lines for the high speed rail service.

Answer 5

Because the government subsidizes the railways over there, whereas in the US, it's all profit margin, so they don't paint cars, equipment, cut grass along ROW's, etc. Passenger service is better over there, simply because they prefer it and don't subsidize the automobiles they way they are over here.

Answer 6

That's the best question I have read here in a long time!

I love riding trains in EU.  Ridiculously efficient and you can live your entire life without even owning a car or even filling up.  Of course; everybody drives a car also, but they ride trains much more frequently.  

Europe is leaving the USA in the dust when it comes to trains.  

It's a d**n shame too, because I studied US History (I was a history major) and we Americans had such a rich history in railroads.

USA invented  Railroad time , today we know them as the 24 world time zones.

USA was the first to universalize the railroad track width across an entire continent "from sea to shining sea".

The railroad was instrumental in forging this nation during the industrial revolution; transporting Gold from California and Cotton from the Deep South.  Transporting troops during the two World Wars and yeah, where did that desert stopover for G.I.'s called LAS VEGAS get its start?

The Europeans did not have a singularly greedy car company attempting to put trains out of business.  

Truck transport has taken over most of the business of transporting products.  I remember when I was working at 2 different GM plants, both had train tracks that hadn't been used for transport in decades!

And the big reason is Big Oil.  They have successfully (and extremely indirectly attributed to) hampered rail transit.  

I gotta tip my hat to them, they have killed all baby enemies in the womb including Nuclear power, Solar power, Mass transit, carbon fiber, you name it.  All road surfaces constantly need to be resurfaced with more petroleum products.  Plastics are cheaper than carbon fiber, why switch to solar power and pay $20,000 up front when my electric company burns fuel for my electricity.  And they'll be damned if a mass transit system ever cuts into our oil consumption.  Oh wait, we do get a bone from them:  Diesel busses.  But Diesel Locomotives in the USA vs. High Tensile cable-fed trains in EU just isn't fair.

Answer 7

In addition to the government subsidies, there's the issue of fuel prices.  For whatever reason, European governments chose to charge enormous taxes on gasoline for the past 50 years, so that effectively only the rich can afford to drive everywhere they want to go, and it's advantageous to use mass transit.  In the U.S., we don't have those taxes, and the country is much larger and people are spread out.  As a result, we don't have as much demand for high speed rail.

In terms of freight, USA trains are more advanced than European trains in some ways, and European trains are more advanced in other areas.   They're very comparable.

Answer 8

Well where I'm at the trains run what I think is pretty fast for a freight train and the track is not uneven either ... the rail is straight and level.  maybe some smaller lines don't have as good of track because they don't have as much to spend on it. if you wanna complain about trains how about India or something .. I remember seeing pictures of people riding on top of the cars and I was like omg! I happen to like our trains here ... they look the coolest by far babe.