this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2026
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I completely agree that "major cities" should have trains, but look at Alaska and tell me how many places would be remotely hospitable to trains or their tracks?
Alaska has a really interesting rail system that was built during the gold rush specifically to get people into remote parts of the state that were otherwise almost completely inaccessible at the time.
There's tons of remote villages that don't have trains still mind you, but my point is that if there's a will there's a way. Right now airlines and fuel are subsidized and encouraged by the govt to keep costs down, which relieves development demand for rail. Flip the incentives and rail could theoretically take off in the USA; but that requires politicians with stones and a will to do good instead of... Whatever they are right now.
Switzerland and Japan too. Some places trains just can't work. You got a point I guess.
both of those places have way too many people so overcoming the geographic challenge makes sense
No, dude, I said you were right. Like THE mountains, just entirely in THE mountains. Or the mountainy islands? Doing trains there is silly and stupid And impractical. Just doesn't make sense some places.
Ironically, parts of Alaska have pretty decent passenger train access. It’s mostly for tourists, but still. Better than most of the USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaska_Railroad
it takea 12 hours and is a once a day train, it really isn't particularly competitive especially because it is more expensive than the plane