--- Jordan Hayes <jmhayes at j-o-r-d-a-n.com> wrote:
> - There are a significant number of areas in the US
> where commuter rail
> networks are thick: New Jersey/Long
> Island/Connecticut, Northern
> Ilinois, Boston, LA (MetroLink).
Thick comapared to what? Even if you factor in local els/subways, Berlin and Munich have commuter networks that rival that of much larger NYC and are loads better than Chicago's. Chicago's is maybe a little better than Prague's, with about 7 times the population and much wider area. Boston's network is pretty good considering the size of the metro area, but that's as good as it gets. But then they got unions and some state health insurance and stuff like that.
You have a point with US geography making some intercity trains non-viable, but with commuter networks there's no contest between US and Europe. Just walk away.
> Railroads in the US built routes everywhere it made
> sense (and a lot of
> places where it didn't) long before cars were
> invented or airplanes took
> over the medium-to-long haul routes. These rail
> lines are largely
> intact today.
Intact at best as freight lines. The passenger lines are gone, and many rail lines are now just embankments and cement remnants of bridge supports. Or rail-trails. You can see the archeological remains all over the place around Chicago.
Oh, yeah, have you ever been shunted off on a spur in an Amtrak train? It doesn't happen much in the East, but on the Chicago-Detroit line passenger trains have to give way to freight trains. Like the corn syrup is going to spoil or something. That's a complete reversal of fifty years ago.
Chicago just turned a major downtown switching yard into Millenium Park.
Take a gander at a map of the Boston & Maine in 1898. It was even thicker at its peak in 1915.
<http://www.ushistoricalarchive.com/train_maps/cd1/33a.html>
Nowadays you can't get theyah from heah.
Andy
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