The Sad and Awful Way We Destroyed the World's Greatest Passenger Rail

[@CityNerd]

On second thought, forget the actuarial table.The Nebula Lifetime Membership is a massively helpful way to support what I do with the channel, and you can get it for $300 IN SEPTEMBER 2023 ONLY! go.nebula.tv/lifetime?ref=citynerd Or, use my link for 40% off an annual subscription -- it's still a good deal too! go.nebula.tv/citynerd

[@EvilGenius007]

If you want to do the 3-C trip next year you can borrow my car, as long as you drive stick. And don't mind that it's a BMW M3.

[@Foxy_AR]

At first I thought “wait, 300 dollars?!? That’s a ripoff!!” And then I read closely and thought “ooohhh, it’s lifetime” 😅

[@noob.168]

Maybe if you do a long video diving deep into these old train schedules. 😈

[@ttopero]

I’m a patron contributor & nebula subscriber One thing I’m intrigued by is how traveling has changed over the last 150 years since passenger rail went through its “normal distribution” like use. I’m imagining that there was a lot more demand for going a few towns over than between major cities, that we typically do by car, but arduous by horse-power or early cars on dirt roads. We’re focusing a lot on high speed rail that will skip hundreds to thousands of communities with very few options outside the private car. To get one or the other seems impossible since getting just one is practically impossible these days, but this shows we did have it at one time & the ROW probably still exists to a significant degree to have it again, if we truly choose to.

[@Mr.Alkebulan]

Two things that ruined passenger rail in America .The Esch Cummins act of 1920 and the standard zoning enabling act of 1916 . These right here are the main culprits when this change the the built environment will as well.

[@MrFolton17]

This should have been called "How to get depressed in 17 minutes."

[@lovewenwin]

😂😂😂😂

[@triaxe-mmb]

Truth

[@catgirlforeskin]

it’s who framed Roger Rabbit with dry humor instead

[@OurToronto]

Fact! Lol

[@charliesullivan4304]

".. but it will be well worth it." 3:00

[@robertgole7128]

When people say the USA is too big, or we never had passenger rail, I tell a simple story of how my father rode a train in the late 1940's from a small town of 25,000 in Ohio to Washington, D.C. The trip took 8 hours to travel about 400 miles. Oh, he also told me there were three trains a day! At present, Chillicothe, Ohio has no train and no station, so you can only get there by car, it takes 8-9 hours, and it's exhausting. Thanks for describing the way we used to travel around the country and thanks for the website. This is so depressing.

[@Leonardo-ik9fx]

Its insane almost 100 years later and is just marginally the same time by car, in France for example from Montpellier to Paris(about 800KM/500Miles) is just 3:30H

[@mostlyguesses8385]

Why depressing. We have cars and planes now. Yes we lost trains we had in 20s. Transport is faster and easier now, that's progress..... I myself ride Greyhound bus and clearly white people dont like mixin w others, just a fact, I bet you havent ridden greyhound last 5 years. I bet you havent even look up greyhound schedule. Greyound goes 70mph it's like a train.. So any train won't work in US, w people who hate being near others and want their cars..... our grandparents chose cars over trains, on crappy roads no freeways they liked cars better. We ran the experiment and cars won. . I have no car I walk in Galveston...

[@ft9kop]

That trip with modern trains would be 4 to 5 hours

[@toddinde]

@@mostlyguesses8385 You're absolutely incorrect. We had the finest rail system in the world through the 1950s. Greyhound today is a ridiculous joke. No stations, the busses are frequently canceled and hopelessly late. People didn't choose the car; it was entirely government policy that subsidized highways. Where rail has been expanded in this country it has been incredibly successful. All surveys of the American people show they want more trains, usually in the 80% range. Rail is the future and is coming back big time.

[@mostlyguesses8385]

@@toddinde ... I ride Greyhound the MN to Houston, and Chicago to Houston runs 4 times a year, it always runs never late... Dallas and KC and Chi and texarkana and Mpls and others have stations, truly, yes about 5% of big cities don't (St Paul don't). . . . I bet you've never tried it cuz deep in your heart you're happy driving 8 hours to destination, to have a car free upon arrival. . . . Govt does not subsidize roads, if count fuel and license and sales tax on cars , TRULY, it's transit that drains govt coffers by $5000 per rider per year. Now cars are drain on private pockets, by $7000....... Sigh. I'm being honest, nonpoor people love their cars and most won't use a train even if built it, you won't even use Greyhound and slam it!. People will slam any train.. My grandpa drove Minneapolis to International Fallls even when there was a train, 8 hours, our ancestors did NOT love trains, there mustbe subconscious hate or racism against trains.... go ride local bus, bet you it's all brown people, despite surveys white people secretly donf wanf to be near others, my mom too, she literally says she wants distance... no car conspiracy happened we got the transpport system our grandparents wanted.. even w 100 years headstart and million routes boy did trains lost fast, total vote for cars and planes.. it's shocking, people hated trains .. I sppeent 10 days on Amtrak for fun, Mpls to Seattle to LA to NY to Miami to Mpls, staying in hostels... lots of Amish still use it. Peace..

[@jeffreywilliams3421]

Usually I'm depressed for no reason, but after watching your videos, I am depressed for good reason. Its a real relief.

[@jeanclaudevanswag]

This video is the reason why I’m going to speak in front of a bunch of old people at a city hall meeting about turning our abandoned rail line into a light rail network. Godspeed, CityNerd.

[@jacobdumas7643]

Living in the Midwest, I am constantly infuriated at how unbelievably well-connected each and every city was by passenger rail less than a century ago when comparing to today’s service. The region is ripe for rail revitalization given the effects of outsourced manufacturing jobs, the respectable population density of the region, and the seemingly endless flat topology. We can make it happen :)

[@484berkshire]

Sorry, best we can do is 3 daily trains between Chicago and Pontiac, MI, that take 2 hrs longer than a similar car trip would (and that's when the train isn't broken down in the middle of nowhere for half a day).

[@katiem.3109]

I hate to be that person, but as a math grad student I can't let this one pass: You mean topography, not topology.

[@ericburton5163]

I think the issue is that people in Great Lakes region are such debbie downers on any policy efforts of any type. Name one thing that a government in the Great Lakes states have done that you are proud of? Especially compared to other states. It doesn't help that the national press, politicians, and social media are always dunking on the region, with at best talks about how great "it could be". I mean the state of Michigan has been buying track from rail companies so that passenger trains have the right of way and can go 110 mph. I was pleasantly surprised how nice my trip from Battle Creek to Chicago was. Michigan also spent money to study high speed rail connecting different cities. Yet all I hear from fellow Michiganders is when a train gets stuck for forever and people break out (fair play, that was horrible and Amtrak needs to get its act together), from liberals how Michigan isn't doing anything for rail (blatantly false) to conservatives (any improvement in rail is failed, rail sucks - look at the Amtrak train that got stuck). I hate all this talk about what could be, but once we start moving in that direction, because it's not perfect, it gets trashed. Honestly one of the main reasons I want to move to Texas, Georgia, or North Carolina. If both liberals and conservatives can agree that their states are run perfectly or at least much better than everywhere else (even if they complain about the individual politicians), that's a place I want to live. It's depressing being in a place where everyone is so negative about any changes/efforts to make things better and always talking about the potential.

[@chilecayenne]

@@ericburton5163 Welcome to the south...BUT, we do ask you leave your politics and previous voting pattern where you were....you left there for a reason, please don't bring that reason with you to your new home. ;)

[@owenelliott5742]

Nah

[@julianac1551]

In fact, most of local rail in Europe was also neglected or dismantled, just nowhere to the extent that the US did, and thank God for that.

[@Sacto1654]

The French were keen to build truly high-speed rail after a (mostly) successful test in the mid 1950's that proved safe train travel at over 300 km/h (186 mph) was possible. That's why they chose to build the high-speed TGV network starting in the late 1970's on.

[@osasunaitor]

In fact local rail keeps being dismantled in some parts of Europe as we speak. Just last year a 260 km long regional line got closed down in central Spain. Ironically, CityNerd uses footage of Spanish trains as an example of "good European rail" during the video lol.

[@GABESTA535]

@@Sacto1654 The French are basically abandoning a lot of their rural lines at the present.

[@あいはら恆秋]

@@osasunaitor Japan is the same. Huge stretches of local line being abandoned. When a storm causes damage to the tracks, railway companies don't bother to repair it, nor does the government provide any support. Service is simply axed.

[@lego501stTrigger]

Difference between lines being abandoned and tracks and stations being demolished for highways which is what we did and still do in NA

[@Maxime_K-G]

Even in Europe, at least half of our rail lines and the vast majority of our trams and urban rail have been abandoned.

[@terrygelinas4593]

Europe us light years ahead of America, regardless.

[@mattevans4377]

I think that depends on the country. France, Germany and Italy still seem to be invested in railways, and no amount of protesting appears to be stopping them.

[@AndreiTupolev]

Whereabouts in Europe do you mean? In France certainly, there used to be a vast network of rural light railways, but Germany, Switzerland or the Netherlands seem to have largely escaped the actions of a Euro-Beeching

[@Maxime_K-G]

@@mattevans4377 Those are the countries I'm talking about. You can often still see the remnants of where the old rail lines used to be on the map (especially OSM) and some have been converted to multi-use trails. France removed all of its urban tramways at some point. They have been slowly reintroduced in the latter half of the 20th century.

[@leonpaelinck]

Yes! Belgium once had the densest rail network in the world (mostly light rail). It was called "De Buurtspoorwegen" We ripped them all out with some exceptions. The coastal tram is the only (non city tram) that remains

[@angellacanfora]

This vid inspired me to share a favorite family story. My Kansas City, MO born/bred grandma was sent away to a seminary school in Indiana by her parents when she was 17 in 1939. Her family expected her to become a missionary. Grandma had other ideas, though, and under cover of darkness, slipped out of the school, boarded a train bound for San Francisco and never looked back. Yay, trains! 🎉❤

[@frederickma2193]

I guess your grandma never returned home!

[@michaelengelhardt5336]

The saddest fact I'll always remember is the Zephyr in the 1930s went from Denver to Chicago in 13 hours. Now it takes over 18 hours if it's not delayed 😞

[@grantmantz4204]

Given that the fare was $500-1000 in inflation adjusted terms and you can currently fly for half the price and get there in 1/5 the time... how great was the Zephyr by todays standards?

[@GnurpsYrag]

Travel was more expensive in general. Technology and economic growth have decreased costs of travel. Had America continued to invest in passenger trains instead of or in addition to highways and airports, prices for rail would have decreased in the same way. @@grantmantz4204

[@derp3044]

​​@@grantmantz4204that was probably some of the best technology they had at the time in NA, but obviously we have better now. If a newer train was put instead on that old track, it would not only be cheaper (LOTS CHEAPER) but be more efficient and faster (faster than that 13 hours!!) To compare to flight, it might not be practible for all but with enough people using it, it might become a great alternative. Also would be tons better for transporting cargo.

[@zuffin1864]

My Great Grandmother, Iris, was only able to visit my family by train because it was the most comfortable for her, as she was near a 100 years old, it makes sense. The stress of an airport, the turbulence, the uncontrollable anxiety, are all great reasons, as well as straight up handicap accessibility being better on a train.

[@GalladofBales]

Right, and not to get depressing, but with climate change, turbulence is only going to get worse, along with delays and cancelations due to weather as we get more extreme weather events more frequently. It is honesly imperative that we start building back up our train service, or else domestic travel is going to be screwed.

[@DiamondKingStudios]

A maternal great-grandmother of mine (1914-2014) spent nearly her entire adult life until her nineties in northern Virginia, fairly close to DC, and would prefer train travel to air travel when visiting her daughter after she moved to the Atlanta suburbs. This continued until she was eventually moved to a nursing home in the Atlanta area where she lived the rest of her days. A different, paternal, great-grandmother of mine (who just barely missed by months the day I was born, so I did not ever get the chance to visit her) also preferred Amtrak due to a fear of flying, but back when she was alive most of her sons’ family still lived in the northeast, so it was easier.

[@birbluv9595]

I am “only” 67 years old but I just had an incredible nightmare air journey trying to get from Bozeman, MT to Richmond, VA (American Airlines, through DFW.) I am out $324 that I can’t get compensation for due to delays and a missed connection. “Air congestion” is not the fault of the airline. I’m never flying again. The stress, the rushing around, the lies, the crowds in airports, etc. make for many health problems I don’t need.

[@kathrynstemler6331]

I was reading an old postcard that my grandmother had save and it was from a family friend describing how to take the Winnipeg Selkirk Electric Railway to visit them in what is now a bedroom community. They said it would only take half and hour from Winnipeg. This was from 1912. Google maps tells me the journey would now take 45 min by car.

[@wadp5962]

Read "Winnipeg's Electric Transit: The Story Of Winnipeg's Streetcars And Trolley Buses" by John E. Baker, which includes the interurban lines to Stonewall and Selkirk.

[@HighHolyOne]

A plaque in Cincinnati's station says that during WWII, more than 200 trains stopped at Cincinnati daily. Amtrak now uses what used to be the lounge outside the men's room, while the rest of the station has been repurposed. Two museums - good use for the building - but how times have changed. Also, Cincinnati to Chicago? Middle of the night service.

[@danielhutchinson6604]

Something is better than Wahepeton to LaMoure ND has now.....

[@john-ic9vj]

Don't you love when politicians say that rail would be relevant if it was profitable, yet they use billions in public funds for road projects. Give the roads back to private companies and see where that goes. This actually was a thing for a lot of roads before the 1930s. After a while, the owners realized they could toll everyone and didn't bother to upkeep the roads cause they knew the people needed to use the road to live.

[@sagoamicably6486]

Spends 150 billion per year on highways and then has the balls to ask rail to both compete and be profitable and self-sustaining. The car and oil lobbies have completely won, man 😢

[@colormedubious4747]

Toll roads have been on the rise everywhere in the USA for decades. Even in Left-leaning cities and states that love to pretend they give a hot, steaming fart about the environment and alternatives to driving. In fact, many of these places are the WORST offenders, like Austin TX and all of California.

[@nunyabidness3075]

That’s a great argument for a higher gas tax, but not so much for more trains. The highways are necessary whether you have trains or not.

[@speedstrn]

I would also add how much we've sunk into airlines for this episode. That hypothetical midwest great lake nation-state has a ton of short-haul flights all over that region. I live in a small city in that area and we have 6 daily flights to Chicago, 3 daily flights to Detroit, and 0 train connections. Edit: Oh, and 0 bus connections as well. No public transportation, just expensive polluting flights or driving a car.

[@steemlenn8797]

@@nunyabidness3075 Trains are necessary wether you have highways or not.

[@Alchemeleon]

I rode the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto and wanted to compare it to a trip in the US. Turns out it's almost exactly the same distance as Chicago to Detroit. In Japan, though, the trip took about two hours while my last Amtrak ride from Detroit to Chicago took five and a half. Once you start comparing trips between Midwest cities to any other country it's hard not to get sad

[@KeeperKen30]

3.5 million people combined in Chicago/Detroit. 15.5 million combined in Tokyo/Kyoto, plus massive cities between them. That is an obstacle that is too large to overcome. Consider how many people need to travel between Chicago/Detroit and figure out how many would take the train when the interstate is about a 4-5 hour drive with no time table.

[@KeeperKen30]

@@mauchan87 Because with a car I can choose to leave, stop, divert, stay longer on my schedule.

[@Alchemeleon]

@@mauchan87 Dont even have to stop to go to the bathroom

[@Alchemeleon]

@@mauchan87 Oh yeah and you're pretty much infinitely more likely to die during that car trip than during a train ride

[@edwardmiessner6502]

It's really f@cking depressing how much intercity passenger rail services we lost. We used to be second to none and now we have a rail system the Russians would be ashamed of. This atrophy could have been arrested back in the mid 1950s by passing a sensible transportation policy instead of that Interstate Highway Act of 1956 which spelled the death knell of passenger rail, the remaining streetcars, and even the old industrial cities, and it didn't have to happen!

[@AndreiTupolev]

The Russians would be ashamed of? Russia has a vast rail network with many long distance overnight (or several night) passenger trains

[@pseudonymous1382]

@@AndreiTupolev Yeah, I think that's the point. Any sane country would be ashamed if they built a great rail network only to destroy it.

[@greasher926]

@@AndreiTupolevRussian’s are know for having bad infrastructure, especially in the 90s when funding ran out for all the maintenance. That being said Russia has a decent rail system mainly because the automobile didn’t take over in the Soviet Union like it did in the US, so prop still heavily relied on public transit. Although now days Russia is becoming increasingly auto centric.

[@elFulberto]

@@AndreiTupolev You don;t get it Edward wants to say Russians are bad so everything they do is bad. So Russians rail system surely must be bad as well. Heck, they force children to operate their rolling stock! Google Children's Railroad in Russia!

[@danielhutchinson6604]

Considering the effects of removing the mail from the Rails, in 1967, we may more clearly appreciate how to kill the use of rail services? The Rural Granger Lines that served the Dakota's began to die and then the small towns they served diminished into Agricultural Industrial areas of Commodity production. Without the mail, the need to maintain branch lines were less profitable. Without Train service, the Working Class Individuals who could ride trains into and away from the Small Towns were driven uot and the Small Towns died. Now Ag Production resembles the 1800's Bonanze farms that consumed the original Homesteaders Claims. Homestead Farms were surveyed and located lines of Property that was easy to buy up as the original Settlers went Broke. Grain Elevators without a Rail Connection to Flour Mills and Commodity Shipping points at Ports and Waterways. But the 1967 efforts that Oil Company Investors used to steer Taxpayer Dollars to Trucks that consume lots of fuel appear to be the motivation behind that particular effort. The Book called "To Hell in a Day Coach" illustrated how that was accomplished. I personally participated in the removal of several Rail Lines in the Midwest. I was able to ride a train to just about any Small Tome in the Midwest before that action killed a lot of rail traffic.

[@awilder87]

Sigh.....watching this makes me sad. We FUMBLED the ball so hard with rail in this country. I recently took the train from Minneapolis to Milwaukee and I think I had one or two options for the entire day. Literally had this conversation with a student today about how train infrastructure (or lack thereof) has failed our country.

[@goldenstarmusic1689]

Currently, the Twin Cities to Milwaukee corridor sees a single daily round trip by the Empire Builder long distance train. Soon, there's set to be a dedicated second round trip between Minneapolis-St Paul and Chicago around the end of this year ideally. It's really frustrating, considering how St Paul Union Depot used to get up to 300 daily passenger trains compared to what it sees now. Minnesota is at least trying to invest in more passenger rail services though, like the Northern Lights Express line between Minneapolis and Duluth, which will do the trip up to 90mph in speed.

[@cdjhyoung]

We didn't fumble the ball with rail transportation. Better technologies arrived that made its short comings to significant to over come for most American uses. We have huge distances to travel in the US. Air travel is the superior way to over come those distances. For shorter distances perhaps roughly 200 miles or less, private automobiles make far more sense than rail travel. Private cars and Air travel is the system we need in the US.

[@cipher01]

@@cdjhyoung i think this comment ignores the 200-700 miles range where HSR beats air travel and car travel while being vastly more comfortable.

[@cdjhyoung]

@@cipher01 I stated my case against high speed rail farther down in the comments. There is little to no case to be made for high speed inter city rail if those cities don't already have a mass transit system of their own in place and highly utilized. It is a great dream to step on a train and go 100 mph to the next city. But you need the system to get to the train in place first, and the matching system to step from the train to your destination. And have it take less time than driving. For a 200 mile trip, unless you live in the train station, you can''t make it work. Driving your car to the train station makes no sense. Mass transit needs to pick you up close enough to your home to make this worth while. And that mass transit needs to be quick, clean and safe. No bums sleep in the cars.

[@ericpopcorn6607]

Reminds me of how the second tallest building in the world when built in 1927 and tallest outside of New York in North America until 1964 was the terminal tower in Cleveland. It was built to be Cleveland’s rail terminal and was fully electric.

[@Ivyglasgow]

Cleveland, with monumentally poor timing... The first train arrived to the new station on October 23, 1929. Has it all been downhill since then? Not completely; Terminal Tower was the station for the Red Line which went to the airport... and doesn't anymore.

[@Ivyglasgow]

@chriskovach5826 correction, turns out my mom isn't an awesome source for up- to- date transit info. The Red Line and the Tower City station have been closed off and on for repairs in the last few years but are currently open. The Waterfront line is apparently defunct. Still, Cleveland ought to do better.

[@ericpopcorn6607]

@@Ivyglasgow The water front line has just reopened but only for Browns games. They plan on it being on a regular schedule in the spring or summer.

[@madmanthan21]

Couple weeks ago i looked up how many intercity trains a week are there in Cincinnati, Ohio, population: 2.265 million people, 6 intercity trains a week, that's a train every 1,680 minutes or 28 hours, on average. Comparing that to the 2 closest cities by population in India: Salem, Tamil Nadu, 2.46 million people, 652 intercity trains a week, that's an intercity train every 15.5 minutes on average. Nashik, Maharashtra, 2.18 million people, 544 intercity trains a week, that's an intercity train every 18.5 minutes on average. And that's not counting the local trains.

[@LMB222]

And that applies to Australia, Japan, Europe, Vietnam, probably even South America. Even the number of trains between Montreal and Toronto is higher than any respective pair of US cities. Wake up, Americans!

[@raptorroar8885]

Cincinnati person here yah its pretty depressing considering we have a pretty nice station but in good news amtrack is actively planning to expand the number of trains their by quite a bit with daily trains to chicago and Indianapolis and the 3C+D corridor. and amtrack also applied for a grant to increase the cardinal which goes through cincinnati from its 6 times a week to 14 times a week ! so theirs hope !

[@regulate.artificer_g23.mdctlsk]

How come India gets to be BASED when it comes to trains? One of the only few Third World countries that isn't poisoned by Americanistic urban planning.

[@madmanthan21]

@@regulate.artificer_g23.mdctlsk We have american urban planning too, check out Mumbai coastal road, Delhi (my home city) also has lots of massive urban freeways (upto 20!! lanes). But in terms of intercity rail India is pretty great, faster than cars atleast

[@isaac9941]

Yes, and it comes at ungodly hours in the night (1AM)

[@gabetalks9275]

What's encouraging is that we have still the original blueprints to reference as we rebuild our railways.

[@bocahdongo7769]

In fact, the entire problem of US railway infrastructure is just politic They absolutely insanely could allocated the money on railway, they just don't want to and instead adding more lane in highway and suburb

[@fernbedek6302]

Having watched lots of French or UK rail youtubers, I’m not sure anyone’s maintained their 1920s era rail. But, in functional countries that usually meant replacement with buses for small towns without rail demand, not a complete collapse of mass intercity transit.

[@richardfoldes7793]

In my country ( Slovakia ) lots of train station have fallen under disrepair after the communist regime collapsed in 1989, since the country was pretty much in shables so people kinda forgot about trains. They did the thing with buses as you mentioned and it works great ! They usually connect villages and small towns to district towns ( around 10,000 ppl ) with train stations.

[@reinatakagawa]

Oh, it is indeed an enormous decline in most places. Sweden's closure by the 1980's reached more than 65% of the former existing lines following a 1960 political decision that, 'all modes of transport shall bear their own cost', which was interpreted so as to favour road transport, and 50% was a common closure rate in many countries across Europe. While it never went as far as in the United States, it was sometimes not far off--and if some politicians and their consultants had their way, it would've been the same. There were discussions in some places at some times for the closure of the majority of passenger services. Across Sweden and Norway, there's been a considerable decline in passenger services outside of the main lines well into the late 1990's.

[@DarcyRyder2010]

Melbourne, Australia did a good job with trams at least :/.

[@reinatakagawa]

In the case of Japan, for example, the closure wave is persisting to this day (it started later because, while there was a proposal in the 1960's to do a Beeching axe style swath of cuts, it was stopped by then government who regarded it as undesirable and unpopular; leaving it to resume when the anti-railway administration took office, and privatisation of the state railways was beginning to be potentially planned for in the 1980 Railways Act. Japan's railway network saw its greatest extent in 1981, and thereafter began cuts and closures. SInce 1987, almost half of all lines in Hokkaido have been abolished, with major cuts occurring as late as 2014. Often times extensions of high-speed lines have also result in abolitions and reduction in local services where traffic levels are not low. About 10 years ago the pro-road mayor of the city of Ise derangedly proposed a batshit plan to close the railway station and turn it into a car park! New motorway construction continue unabated, even on rural routes that will never get much traffic, certainly never enough to repay the costs, but the railways are expected to turn a profit or receive small subsidies from often struggling local authorities along the routes... truly, a sad situation...

[@memunist5765]

The Dutch railway network received relatively little cutbacks compared to international contemporaries. Few lines have been cut, disproportionately freight and cross-border lines. That is because in the years following the reconstruction of the country and the economic boom that followed that instead of cutting lines the Dutch railways realised that cutting service on lines would result in less passagiers. That being especially true on the dense Dutch network where most inter-city journeys could be made directly. Instead to declaring certain lines to not be profitable they declared the entire network unprofitable. No politician would dare axe all of it.

[@kaekae4010]

As a Spaniard, I have subscribed to this channel for years xd it is still strange, see how my country is talked about (we are not really good at commuter services). On the other hand, in terms of high-speed train, it is true that it opens a new door of possibilities, without counting tourism. It is possible to go from Madrid-Barcelona or for example also Valencia-Barcelona, or Madrid-Sevilla etc, and return on the same day, and you will move comfortably, something that does not happen if you go by plane/airport. As a representative of the high-speed train association/club for America said in an interview with a delegate from Talgo-USA, having a business meeting in the morning in Seville and a presentation/dinner in Madrid in the afternoon was possible with high speed, and that opened up a whole new world of possibilities for business. It would be a very good thing for many cities in the United States. (Obviously the supreme example of this way of seeing it would be Japan. The Shinkansen opened up a whole new universe in term of service for that country and economy).

[@LoveStallion]

You don't think Cercanías has pretty good timetables and coverage? I lived in Spain for a few years and didn't have much trouble with commuter trains getting me where I needed to go. I lived primarily along the eastern coast and used a mix of Renfe and FGC when I lived in Tarragona.

[@kaekae4010]

@@LoveStallion Catalonia and part of Valencia have good suburban services, but there are regions in the north that practically do not have (minimum) services to be considered optimal. Other communities like Extremadura are very bad in that sense, Castilla La Mancha etc, the same. Urgent improvement is needed in this class of services, lines and better periods.

[@fabiancillox1]

@@kaekae4010 en todos lados se cocen habas , en españa tambien les venden mucho el cuento los politicos sobre el tren , prometiendo la alta velocidad a pueblos sin ninguna rentabilidad , ahora cierto es que pedirle rentabilidad al tren es como pedirle rentabilidad a la alcantarilla , y lamentablemente ese es el paradigma para TODA america , desde canada a chile

[@Alvar2001]

@@fabiancillox1 No. No sé a cuento de qué viene su comentario, @kakae4010 no dijo nada de lo que Ud. rebate. El tren de alta velocidad puede ser rentable, al menos en España lo es, si no fuera así no se habrían abierto las líneas de alta velocidad a la competencia de otros operadores, y donde antes había 1 ahora hay 4 y esto no hizo más que empezar. Claro que yo hablo de mi país, que es lo que conozco, no de todo un continente extranjero del que no tengo n.p.i.

[@osasunaitor]

​​@@LoveStallionthe _Cercanías_ (commuter) and regional rail services in Spain have undergone many years of heavy disinvestment, since in the 1990s the policy became to fund high speed rail almost exclusively and keep everything else to a minimum. As a result, a network that should theoretically have good coverage is now plagued with issues that result in a very bad service quality and even severe accidents sometimes. You can ask any resident of a major city about his local Cercanías service, 9 out of 10 will begin a rant consisting of all the times the service has failed them miserably in the last weeks.

[@charlesrussell9312]

Second train between Chicago and St. Paul is set to begin this fall. (Supposedly at the end of this month (Sept 2023.) Amtrak's goal is to bring that up to at least 5 trains a day.

[@goldenstarmusic1689]

I heard from All Aboard Wisconsin they want a goal of 6 round trips, 3 on the existing Empire Builder corridor and then 3 on the Eau Claire-Madison alignment. I think that's a good baseline to hit, but we could continue to ramp that up with popularity of the service.

[@toddinde]

@@goldenstarmusic1689 It's coming. Rail is coming back because it has too. There isn't any choice.

[@gordymoore4606]

It's going to be later than September (Source: MnDOT representative at early Sept. Great River Rail Commission meeting), but it should still be in 2023! It really is happening, but there's been a ton to iron out between Amtrak, the host railroads, three state DOTs, and getting everything coordinated.

[@dwarftoad]

I just recently missed a train for the first time in a long time, from Cleveland to Albany (LL runs once a day each direction), at 5:45am, on the one day a month that an Amtrak train is not late, and had to dejectedly book a second night at a hotel and sit there in my darkened room lamenting the lack of train frequency in most of this country. (And I had already taken a greyhound from Sandusky because it stops just way too early in the morning there for me.... after a car ride from a house that literally had an electric streetcar running past it in the 30s.)

[@Sordesman]

So sad, but I am still happy that at least trains still exist. I just took the cascades from Seattle to Portland and it was undoubtedly the best intercity trip I have taken in the US.

[@emma70707]

Yes, the Cascades is great! I loved my trip last year about this time. Super convenient. The wifi/LTE got a bit spotty in parts, but I had pre-downloaded stuff like I do for flights so it wasn't a big deal and not having to drive/pay for wifi at all like I would for a flight was a huge boon. And can't beat the price as a single person--parking in a hotel, let alone gas would easily make the business class set worth it.

[@toddinde]

Amtrak really isn't bad and will expand and get better.

[@GirtonOramsay]

Hell yeah I definitely enjoy the Pacific Surfliner between LA and San Diego myself. Only used the Empire Builder between Spokane and Portland/Seattle. I've only ever been on time or 10 hrs late with those trips.

[@danieltoth-nagy5097]

I'm not American, but live in an area of the UK where we lost around 90% of the previous railway infrastructure and this video literally made me cry. Subscribed!

[@scottrichards3587]

Enforcing the 1972 Amtrack law that gives passenger rail the right of way over freight can be the first step to truly " MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN"

[@713davidh42]

Amen

[@varunkrishnan1424]

I have seen/read about this elsewhere. The problem is not that freight companies intentionally don't give way to amtrak, but the way they are run nowadays, they physically can't. In order to reduce the manpower hence labour costs, trains are run with like 200 cars. Many places have only single tracks, so one train needs to wait on the siding track. But the freight trains are so long, they won't fit there. As a result you can't have them stop for Passenger trains.

[@wafford11]

@@varunkrishnan1424 Sounds more like corporate grifting rather than something that can't happen. If this was put in place, they would HAVE to start paying for labour and reduce car lengths.

[@lovewenwin]

🇺🇲

[@Dayanto]

​@@varunkrishnan1424 Then just sue (or fine) the hell out of any company that puts themself in that situation and the problem automatically resolves itself.

[@Connie.T.]

There's a reason Indianapolis is called the "Crossroads of America" and not the "Interchange of America." P.S. I did similar research about the local transit history here, and over a century ago there used to be not only rail, but *rapid transit* between downtown Indy and where I live in Martinsville, a satellite town of 11k one county over, about a 50 min drive nowadays. They're only just now building I-69 through the same corridor.

[@raymondmuench3266]

As much as the “rails to trails” movement puts some disused real estate to a good end, I all but cry as I watch another potential transportation route disappear before it can be revitalized.

[@maas1208]

Couldn't they turn the trails backs to railway lines?

[@stanhry]

At least, the right of way were turned into park land and not parking lots or strip malls. With the raise of electric bikes, these trails are getting people out of cars. The trail near me , I used to commute to work and to families homes. When it was just a weed patch , people had to share the road while biking. Rail to trails has been a net benefit to communities.

[@colormedubious4747]

It gets even more depressing when you consider all the regional interurban services that used to exist. Take heart, for during my recent trip through the Midwest I noted (and photographed) absolutely CROWDED station platforms in Jefferson City MO and Normal IL ON A SUNDAY. There was a steady stream of people showing up at the station in Springfield IL, too. The Missouri Legislature has authorized funding for the restoration of the historic Jefferson City station. There are new (ish) modern stations in Normal IL, Lansing MI, and Dearborn MI. The stations in Topeka KS and Toledo OH look like bomb shelters but are at least open for business. A lot of improvements depended on state funding to happen, so make some noise at your state reps if you want matters to improve.

[@JohnGotts]

I live in the former whistle stop town of Plymouth, Michigan. The downtown was built with the idea that people would regularly get on and off the train here. Instead you have freight trains rolling right through town at all hours, including 4 am, carrying toxic chemicals, enough to wipe us out.

[@meh-87]

My grandfather who was born in the 1920's and was a big rail fan would talk about how great the rail service was when he was a kid at any opportunity. He was also big into solar in the 80's and had a hot water heating system setup. We've thrown away a ton of what that amazing generation figured out.

[@ericsimandl3998]

Passenger rail was subsidized by the Post Office mail cars, which was how towns and cities got their mail. It was discontinued in the 1970s.

[@stanhry]

Light freight was pretty much taken up by trucking and the freight train lines. With containerized cargo, it would be easier for passenger service to do that again.

[@pacerdanny]

Those timetables and maps were beautiful! Not to mention evocative line names like "Nickel Plate Road." The Americana lyrics practically write themselves!

[@abcdeshole]

They don’t even make timetables now. Rail agencies assume that you can’t read one and force you to use the trip planner. To be fair, most people can’t even read an analog clock anymore.

[@TravelsWithTony]

Brilliant ! And sad… I’m currently on a rail trip from visiting Salzburg to Innsbruck to zürich to bern to Interlaken to Lauterbrunn to wengen…. 30 minute intervals between most big cities. And even in the Swiss alps. Coordinated time tables. 10 minutes or less wait times. High speed, commuter, cog rail up to 13,000 feet !!!! We have dropped the ball in the US.

[@inmpls]

9:27 It blows my mind that I see my tiny little hometown of Dixon, Missouri here, because this map helped me make the connection that so many towns in the US began as transit-oriented development, after a fashion.

[@jdhd2837]

Time to be depressed by the sins of the automobile industry :)

[@jasonreed7522]

Another sin to add to that, when first seeking an "anti-knocking" addative they discovered that ethanol worked, at a 10% by volume or more ratio, but instead used a known poison in a lead based compound that was cheaper. Today ethanol is added to gas explicitly to make it cheaper, and slightly less polluting. (And support the US corn industry)

[@edwardmiessner6502]

And the oil industry and the airline industry and the rubber tire industry ☹️

[@jhmcd2]

People do realize that prior to the 1970's passenger rail in the US was run by private companies who were reproducible for not only maintaining the routes, but also the engines, cars, and everything else. They had actually been going slowly bankrupt since the 1940's. In fact, passenger rail in the US never made a profit, but was always supported by freight, so when the freight companies went under or were allowed to reconfigure their operations, they dumped what didn't work...basically passenger rail. Amtrak actually saved pax rail in the US. In Europe and Asia, these rail lines were always primarily owned by the the government first, by private entities second. Even when private organizations took over, like JR Rail, it went bankrupt, so the government continues to fund the rail companies, maintaining the stations and the rail lines. Now, a way the US could increase rail which has been proposed in decades, build out the rail networks, and own and maintain them, but encourage private companies to use them and lease space in them and the stations, but that's all you can do.

[@IanZainea1990]

7:25 I love that there is a ferry across Lake Erie! I was thinking how they should have one nowadays!

[@tomfields3682]

There was one across Lake Ontario too. (Not the failed Rochester to Toronto one of the early 2000s, but a Rochester to Cobourg one in the 1930s/40s)

[@atm1947]

The politicians that allowed Indianapolis and St. Louis Central Stations to become what they are today should be tried in the same court as war criminals. Imagine surrounding the literal Gateway to the Pacific with empty parking lots and trash covered stroads

[@jamesmcdonnell5617]

. . . and then there was Pennsylvania Station where the govt let New York Central R.R. raze this iconic Mead & McKim limestone temple to modernity, right to the ground; followed now by a feckless guvnor Hoke'um , in the pocket of Vornado R.E. interests, allowing The Hotel Pennsylvania to be destroyed, right across the street from the first rape of Penn Station. Move Madison Square Garden to the Bronx and rebuild Penn Station (NY, NY) , 'Exactly' the way it was before!

[@xCandieAndiex]

i mean, at least the buildings still exist, unlike the abomination they built ontop of the grave of NYC's Penn Station

[@SamAronow]

@@xCandieAndiex "This _is_ the Colosseum." -MSG guys, _Mad Men_

[@geraldvillaMMIX]

​@@SamAronow Hello

[@MichiganTransitGuy]

I have been waiting for a KZbinr to make a video about the old interurban networks in the midwest. It always makes me upset when I talk about restoring some of these lines and people will tell me how unrealistic and unpractical it would be, as if we didn't already do it 100 years ago. We have most of the infrastructure it just needs to be returned to its former glory.

[@MrBblhed]

I would really like to see a video on why it has become impossible to get from anywhere in Connecticut to Boston by any public commuter transportation system, Amtrak or a major bus line are not commuter systems, they are long haul. You used to be able to get to Boston from New York through Connecticut on a trolley and you could get into that system from the back woods of Connecticut or Rhode Island. Even if you use the remaining city buses that can get you from New London to Providence (the terminus of CT rail, and the MTBA), making the connections happen is going to land you on a park bench overnight if anything goes wrong. I bring this topic up because I want to point out that you can't get from Boston to New York by public commuter mass transit but you can get from Springfield Mass to New York on Commuter lines. Why is Boston cut off in this way?

[@edwardmiessner6502]

Because Massachusetts fumbled the ball by deciding to build the Big Dig and not railway infrastructure for Western Mass. Not has it built all the subway infrastructure that was mandated through a court order that the state agreed to so it could build that automotive monstrosity.

[@MrBblhed]

@@edwardmiessner6502 MTBA runs 20 trains a day into Providence, Shoreline East runs 7 trains a day into New London, Amtrak uses the track between Providence and New London just fine. There is no reason why Shoreline East and MTBA can not have a common station on that line either Providence, Lew London, or someplace in between thus making it far more affordable to get to Boston from Connecticut. Springfield and Worchester are similar, but the distance is a little too far to call out the Hartford line and MTBA for not having a common station. The infrastructure argument doesn't work because everything is there already.

[@counterfit5]

​@@MrBblhedmaybe if RIDOT/RIPTA came up with a decent transit plan for having some rail usage again, instead of just piggybacking on MBTA

[@MrBblhed]

@@counterfit5 RI could lease equipment from Connecticut or Massachusetts and slap their own livery on it. Connecticut is in the process of replacing a bunch of trains that can run on both pantagraph and 3rd rail so there really is no equipment shortage at all.

[@Gigaamped]

This is even more depressing than a month ago when I learned the town of Clyde Park, Montana (Population: 300) just north of yellowstone was serviced by rail until 1985. It blew my mind that there was a time in this great country you could live in a town of 300 people and still have the flexibility to travel almost anywhere else 😢 That beats modern day Italy that serves tons of towns in the 1k-20k population range. p.s. imagine how many cars a rail line between yellowstone and glacier would take off the road 😢 millions of visitors a year all to see the same 3-5 sites within each NP 😢

[@haweater1555]

A lot of the secondary passenger trains were primarily carriers of mail, express parcels, and LCL cargo. That you can ride on them was just a bonus.

[@cheef825]

There was also a huge bubble with speculation on trip pairs in developing areas

[@fishofgold6553]

​@@cheef825What does that mean?

[@frigidlava617]

​@@fishofgold6553 the creation of new rail lines lead to real estate booms in the areas that they served, and inevitable crashes

[@KeeperKen30]

@@fishofgold6553 Once the rail lines were no longer the primary carrier of mail and light shipping (UPS of their day), passenger trains lost money. Most passenger rail was considered advertising to draw in freight business as it never was a big money maker.

[@BobFirth]

Ray, you have made me so sad. My dad grew up using the Red car in LA and we all knew what happen there. Thanks for keeping someone accountable (whoever they are).

[@ttopero]

Its so frustrating to know that just a generation before me, students were able to travel between home & school in the Twin Cities & Fargo area (3 universities) with much smaller populations in each than now. Yes, as students, we weren’t profit centers, but we would also be more accepting of a 6-8 hour train ride that was safer than driving on the highway (3.5-4.5 hours) after long weeks & lacking sleep. That public service is completely ignored for thousands of students traversing areas in the harshest weather under the least desirable physiological & traveling conditions.

[@markhesse2928]

As a school field trip at the end of the school year in 1968, my 2nd grade class rode the train from Detroit Lakes to Fargo. I would guess passenger service was ended not too long after that (Amtrak beginning in 1971). Next time I rode a train was when I was in the Army in Germany in the 1980s. Most of us GIs had surprisingly positive impressions of “modern” rail travel.

[@mbarker]

In case you didn't know, as the CPR and CNR lines converge there, Winnipeg had two large railway stations-Union is the one still in service. There are dreams of using one of the empty platforms to support future rapid transit (bus rapid transit)... mostly to free up car space on the Main Street stroad out front! Unlike Minneapolis, Winnipeg still uses most of its rail infrastructure and only one former rail bed turned walking path.

[@abcdeshole]

What a tragedy Winnipeg is. Should have built that subway.

[@MrHeff]

Putting concrete over rails at union station. Almost makes me wanna cry! Should be LRT

[@katherinewaddell2296]

Please do a 3-C visit! Unfortunately, yes, you would need a car. I guess you could take Greyhound, and it's....fine. Every time I have traveled between Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland I have wondered why there is no rail service. Even just the college students going back and forth between the absurd number of colleges in Ohio would make it worthwhile. Cincinnati actually owns an interstate railway that terminates in Chattanooga, TN (The Cincinnati Southern Railway) and they are proposing to sell it to Norfolk Southern and we will vote on it in the November elections this year.

[@lws7394]

That would be a waste ! Now that passenger trains are more in the picture. Goodness me, that is like throwing away a chicken with potentially golden eggs, as the biggest obstacle for improving passenger rails are Freightliners to own the rails.. Aparently 3C is somewhere in the picture ...

[@Taara535]

My gf and I go back and forth between Cleveland and Columbus to see each other. We both hate driving for different reasons. A 3-C train would greatly improve our lives.

[@thexalon]

The 3-C train has been proposed many times - I think Dennis Kucinich was trying to get it when he was in Congress - and the problem has always been very simple, namely opposition from the Ohio Republicans because reasons.

[@Ferroaficionadoo]

In Argentina we went from having the 3rd largest passenger and freight railway network in the 19-20th century until the 90s, Menem privatized the railways, which ended almost all passenger services.

[@georgeh6856]

I grew up on a farm in the Midwest. The nearest town, about 3.5 miles away, had a population of about 120 people at its max. Even that town had passenger train service long before I was born. Then the passenger service was discontinued. When I was growing up in the 1970s, they still used freight trains to haul grain (corn and soybeans) from the town's grain elevator to market. But then sometime in the 1980s or 1990s, they discontinued the freight train service and eventually pulled up the tracks. Now polluting diesel trucks carry the heavy grain to market.

[@xandercruz900]

So? The line became too expensive to operate. They didnt do it to be "mean".

[@georgeh6856]

@@xandercruz900 I never said they did it to be "mean". Those are your words. Funny that how small towns in Europe can still afford passenger rail service, yet here in the USA we are too poor to do the same.

[@xandercruz900]

​@@georgeh6856 >I never said they did it to be "mean". Those are your words. Let's not play stupid, every time this discussion comes up it is always the implied narrative that the reason why passenger rail doesn't exist where you are is because mean old industrialists (usually implied they colluded) with the "auto lobby" to do away with rail that was so more efficient and profitable, but needed to be extinguished to sell more cars (because reasons). Like you said "... Then the passenger service was discontinued..... Now polluting diesel trucks carry the heavy grain to market". As if passenger rail was just generating so much in profits that actual businesspeople decided to just stop it. >"in Europe can still afford passenger rail service, yet here in the USA we are too poor to do the same." No, we just have better methods of crossing a country far larger than Austria.

[@warreviaene1747]

I've got a video idea. What if you take a few trainlines from one of the old companies and then see if they would be viable today. Also a great video as always.

[@baconenjoyer]

Up until a couple years ago one could rent a private car to attach to the rear of an Amtrak. My parents and a couple of their train-obsessed friends rode from Chicago up to Minneapolis and from Minneapolis to Glacier. Fantastic adventure that I'm glad they were able to take before they shut down the option.

[@notisac3149]

I’m pretty sure Amtrak auto trains still exist, but only on one specific corridor somewhere on the East Coast.

[@GamingRailfanner]

@@notisac3149no not that "car" that goes in autoracks, a private passenger car

[@radjago]

Amtrak did stop private car service pre -pandemic during Richard Anderson's tenure as CEO. He came from the airline industry and made a habit of cutting things down to the bone in order to squeeze out more profit. Private car service has recently been resumed for certain cities and routes.

[@nkflynn882]

@@radjago yeah, when i rode amtrak around the western/central US this spring we were towing at least one private car more often than not

[@geisaune793]

I'm from the midwest and I particularly mourn the loss of a Wabash line that went directly from my hometown to my college town. If it was never taken away, and with an upgrade in speed and efficiency I'm optimistically assuming it would have for the modern day, I could walk 5 minutes from my apartment, get on at the station that *_is_* still there, get off at the station that is also *_still there_* in my hometown, and walk again 5 minutes to my parents' house. Door-to-door would probably take less than 2 hours and be far more comfortable. My Grandma lived in a very small town, but nevertheless I could pick her up on the way because another thing that was really great about the rail network the US used to have was the huge number of small rural towns that were served by railroads because rural people deserve mobility too. In fact many of those towns only exist *_because_* of a railroad. Nowadays, the only option is to fight traffic on the interstate for 2.5 hours to get home. Doesn't seem to matter what time of day/week/year it is. The interstate's always packed.

[@christopherderrah3294]

When I was little kid we could take the train from Chicago to Green Bay. There were something like seven or eight trains a day. Then it ended ~1970

[@alaskianbullworm]

“Morphine drip of urbanism outrage” 💀

[@bikenraider99]

Very sobering the amount of choice we have given up over time. Thanks for making this!

[@preachyourstory3452]

Hey, CityNerd, if it's any consolation, Australia almost always has a higher per capita GDP than the US and we have no rail service that even gets close to the Acela or even the Northeast Regional! Solidarity!

[@GojiMet86]

Passenger rail investment must to get it right the first time, otherwise it becomes mired in half-assed compromises. In other words, there must be: 1) Excellent frequencies, not this whole American "Let's-run-only-3-trains-a-day-and-only-during-rush-hour-peaks" deal. 2) Excellent coverage for passengers, not this whole "Let's-build-a-station-with-a-huge-parking-lot-in-the-industrial-area-because-it's-cheaper". 3) Excellent investment, not this whole "Let's-fund-only-the-bare-minimum-3-trains-a-day-at-40-mph-with-70-year-old-trains". 4) Excellent speed, not this whole "Let's-be-happy-with-just-45-mph-for-every-service".

[@MrShaclakclak]

It's bizarre seeing my hometown on that list. A town that today doesn't have a bus service. Don't you dare not own a car!!

[@jello3456543]

You briefly touched on both in this video, but I'd love to see a video dedicated to using your gravity model on European rail systems. I think it would provide some good context on what constitutes a good or bad score that was lacking in your previous gravity model videos.

[@thedapperdolphin1590]

Just thinking of how Pittsburgh and Cleveland used to be in the top 10 most populated cities.

[@AlphabetSoupABC]

St Louis and Baltimore as well.

[@nutmaster7794]

All the jobs went to Mexico and China

[@epicsnake21]

Oh god this was such a tragedy, thank you for making me sad

[@gosnooky]

I wonder about the impact WW2 had in respect to this. Americans came home to an intact and booming economy. We bought houses in the new suburbs, bought cars en masse and cemented our eventual car-dependent way of life. Most of Europe was picking up rubble, rebuilding bombed cities while trying to stay afloat economically. The train infrastructure there was already there, easily repairable, and provided lifelines for commerce and migration in the years after the war. The car craze and buying frenzy of the 1950's just did not happen there. Cars became an indelible part of American culture thanks to said lobbying, aggressive marketing and unchecked capitalism. Conversely, cars became mainly utilitarian in Europe, as more sensible forms of transportation grew organically.

[@larofeticus]

Oh cool, that's Harper's Ferry at 2:38 Both of those bridges are still standing and carrying rail traffic, though the one on the right has added a pedestrian path to connect to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Trail on the far side. It's a neat little historic town where John Brown made his last stand. Maybe a video about examples of old transportation right of ways (rights of way...?) getting repurposed would be interesting? That canal trail goes all the way to Georgetown, and there is also large one ( Washington and Old Dominion Trail ) in nearby Virginia that was turned into a bike trail complete with many old train stations becoming rest stops.

[@coreyadams25]

Letting the national rail network become consolidated under the control of 4 major, private companies was part of the biggest mistake the country allowed to get to this conclusion. The prioritization of their business interests over the public good makes such improvements in passenger rail so difficult.

[@Madaboutmada]

As a Sanborn Fire Insurance map geek, you have shown me a new light in the world of early 20th century train timetables. The artistry in the print is pretty amazing.

[@qolspony]

The reason why they were so many routes, they were so many companies that compete for passengers. When those passengers left, they no longer had the resources to maintain the tracks or to hire employees to run these routes.

[@OriginalBongoliath]

Even back then the majority of passenger routes were not profitable. More of an expense. The loss was offset by the fact A) People needed to get around B) Publicity and advertising for people to use their railroad and C) mail and parcel contracts from the government.

[@Jackissoocool]

Similar to transit connections to natural spaces, I'd be interested in a ranking of metropark systems. You did your urban parks video, but plenty of cities focus more on a big network of natural spaces than a single Central Park-alike. I feel like Cleveland would do well here (especially if you allow linked parks that arent' technically in the metropark system, since Cuyahoga Valley NP is a legit urban national park with top ten visitation).

[@dfwrailvideos]

Dallas (the city) had around 430,000 people living in it around 1950 (DFW as a whole was around 880,000), and during that time SIX railroads operated tens of trains into the station per DAY (Fort Worth had EVEN MORE)! We also had several streetcar and interurban rail lines like the Texas Electric, Dallas Transit Company, etc. Now, we have 6.5 million people living in the DFW metroplex with four LRT lines that only cover Dallas and its suburbs, no surface streetcar network besides MATA and the Dallas Streetcar, two commuter trains (with a third being built) and a total of two Amtrak trains, the Texas Eagle and the Heartland Flyer. We must've lost 95% of our rail by the 1970s, and I'd say we've recovered around 20% of the original transit and rail services in the Metroplex as of today, which counts DART and the commuter trains. Quite sad if you really think about it.

[@cardinalj]

Was walking to meet friends at a local restaurant in my city of Valparaiso Indiana and came across a new sign talking about a railway that got you from local city to local city. Was stopped in because of the rise of cars.

[@RepeatedFailure]

-Map without the UP -Mispronouncing Sault Ste. Marie CityNerd on thin ice with Michigan

[@Grumpist1]

in the flattest intonation possible: "I'm going to take you on a journey of human wonder and raw emotion."

[@leejones4497]

I think there's an element that railways tend to be unionised, and the political right/neoliberalism tendency is to wish to reduce dependency on a system where a country can be 'held to ransom' by unions shutting down the system, so prefer freight and passengers to use roads, over which unions have less/no control. Of course, if staff are paid good wages and provided with good working conditions, this probably needn't be an issue.

[@markweaver1012]

You mean like in France where the railroad workers never go on strike?

[@TheKeksadler]

I've actually never heard this angle from the political right. All I ever hear is "its too expensive and no one wants it".

[@chris51lee]

Ha, Ha. Look at HS2 in Britain or Christie's tunnel cancellation costs. Just short sighted

[@chris51lee]

A really interesting thought. There was a time when people thought Unions were too powerful. Union power does come from the ability to make life uncomfortable. But Europe does seem to strike a better balance. Higher support for unions, higher wages and higher union membership. But Unions have to do a better job of being the side of consumers.

[@theMusicWellOrg]

THANK YOU, Nerd! As a train lover - practical sense and the love of the feeling - I have wondered about the Big C's + L'ville, etc. for years. This from a person living in NKY, in the "Greater Cinci" area, where a subway was built (more than "roughed in") then voted down!

[@susanbrannigan]

I grew up in St. Louis and when it was renovated Union Station became my favorite place to show out-of-town guests. I was just there a few days ago and it's been basically gutted on the inside into half hotel (I assume that keeps some original interiors? hopefully?) and half family fun zone. And while it's nice that it's being used for something it really does make me sad that it really isn't remotely practical to get from my current home to my childhood home by train. I wonder how much this transportation change has contributed to the erosion of St. Louis as a world class city. But at least we still have our Cardinals. One good thing - it is on the MetroLink line, so there's kind of a train served by it. You can at least get from the airport to Union Station on public transport, which you couldn't do when I was a kid.

[@donmc1950]

In 1969 I took a train from Montreal to Chicago to visit my girl friend, the trip took 18 hours. It takes about 15 hrs now to drive with the added stress of driving thru Toronto and Chicago; not a trip I want to repeat. The Canadian government is requesting proposals for high speed rail in the Montreal Toronto route. Perhaps I will live long enough to be able to repeat my 1969 Montreal to Chicago trip by rail.

[@xandercruz900]

Air Canada does the trip in 2 hours. This is why people dont use rail.

[@jillengel4124]

@@xandercruz900with vomit on plane seats as a bonus!

[@emmajean719]

2 hours and a half, plus 3 hours before boarding and one hour after arrival because it's an international flight, plus half an hour to go the airport and half an hour to go from airport to downtown, double that with traffic. I prefer to sleep in the train and travel while I sleep. In a well designed train, people can sleep. You board the train at 7pm, eat your dinner, sleep at 10 pm, wake up at 8 am, eat your breakfast, and you're downtown at 10 am.

[@xandercruz900]

@@emmajean719 Which is just a pathetic attempt to exaggerate to desperately try to bring it on par with an 18 HOUR LONG TAIN RIDE, where I too can gin up a bunch of "horror" scenarios if I wanted to.

[@emmajean719]

With a better train the ride could be half that long, and the possibility to sleep in the train is a real advantage. I've tried it in India, and I certainly prefer a 15 hour train trip by night than a 3 hours trip by plane. If you add the time needed for security and boarding, plus the traffic to and from the airport, plus the convenience of arriving in the morning after a good night of sleep, the train does beat the plane trip for overall convenience and comfort in my opinion. Plane is faster, yes, but not so much that it defeats all the advantages of a good and well organized train line. The reason why people don't take the train is not because they are slower, it's because they're underfunded with pathetic service and absurdly low speed. In India, the train between Kolkata and Delhi (which is about the same distance than Montreal-Chicago) is always full and you need to buy your tickets weeks in advance to have a place. So yeah, it's faster to take a plane, but there's still a case for moderate to high speed rail.

[@jonathanstensberg]

This happened because, prior to reasonably reliable cars and reasonably maintained highways, averaging even just 25mph on a train that stopped in every town-that would have been dramatically faster, safer, and more convenient than any other option, even if you had to make two transfers and walk that last four miles to your destination.

[@smileyeagle1021]

You weren't kidding about how much of my life would get lost going down the rabbit hole of timetableworld. Especially finding the typo on the random Amtrak map/timetable that has Carlin NV and Elko NV swapped from October of 1981. Which, I'm pleasantly surprised that as recently as 1981 tiny little Carlin NV still had rail service, I'm also a little bit disappointed that Amtrak would get basic geography like which city is east/west of the other wrong.

[@commie7325]

I want to be an optimist and say that the US will acknowledge the error of its ways (in some regions it already has) and revert back to trains. If a country so based on trains flipped to cars, it can be flipped once again.

[@Novusod]

The flip from trains to cars is a one way process that cannot realistically be reversed. It is like scrambling an egg. It is very easy to cook an egg in the frying pan but basically impossible to put it back inside the shell. America is basically a cooked egg at this point. A long time ago most of the population was neatly packed inside the shell of core cities that were linked by frequent mass transit. The automobile broke the shell allowing the insides of urban cores to spread all over the place and congeal into suburbs. You can never put that congealed mess back inside the shell.

[@Anneal2425]

It's not that far-fetched. Amtrak already has some plans to restore service to several regions in the US and the modernization efforts look promising. Here in California we already have Caltrain electrification done by next year along with Metrolink and frequency on the Capitol Corridor, San Joaquin, and Pacific Surfliner in the works.

[@sinisterdesign]

@@Novusod We don't have to--unlike eggs, cities consist of sentient people who can "vote with their feet," as the saying goes. Start building nice, walkable neighborhoods linked with good public transit, and the intense desirability of living in those places will cause people to do the "re-congealing" work for us.

[@gabetalks9275]

Even the connectivity of the Connect Us plan has some glaring holes. The most egregious one being the fact that there's no Nashville-Louisville-Cincinnati line. Three major cities within close regional proximity to one another, yet Amtrak doesn't plan to link them together. Pueblo and La Junta should also be connected, so that anyone further can transfer at La Junta and go north into Colorado and Wyoming.

[@jonathanb921]

Very sad. Vancouver island is a tragic example, at one time almost 100 stations connected small towns across the island. Today we have only a 'highway' with stop lights (!) that becomes single lane for several km. On long weekends in the summer you can be stuck in traffic for hours.

[@patmclean1951]

Fantastic recap on the decline of what was and what could be. FYI. The Sault is pronounced Soo :)

[@LetsJamFunk]

13:58 omitting Australia and Canada out of mercy ... wallowing in sorrow at the absence of HSR in high-potential urban corridors

[@AndreiTupolev]

Is it possible to count the ways in which timetables are so much more useful than "journey planners"? They're just so fascinating to browse through

[@geralddavidson5657]

A sad recollection from an old geezer who saw the end of great American passenger rail. The Chicago-Minneapolis corridor was the site of a fast-trains competition in the 1930s. It apparently began with the Milwaukee line, who acquired some fast streamlined locomotives on the Chicago-Milwaukee-Lacross-Minneapolis route. Numerous claims have been made of regular trains exceeding 100 mph. Then the Burlington brought out lightweight diesel trains. The Chicago Northwestern line countered with the "400" on a shorter route, doing the trip in 400 minutes. After WWII everyone switched to diesels, and some of the speeds were retained. I was at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in the 1960s, so I often rode the 400 to Minneapolis, to catch the Empire Builder home to Montana. That was the first time I ever traveled at 100 mph. Not continuous, but the 400 was still able to occasionally open it up in the Wisconsin woods. Madison no longer has a passenger train. The current Empire Builder follows the old Milwaukee route across Wisconsin, making it to Seattle on a trip several hours longer than in 1950. But for a while it was the first TGV, with the fastest scheduled trip between stations along the Mississippi River, at average speeds over 80 mph.

[@justinterested5819]

"The noiseless Route" might be referring to a electric railway

[@Stikkelsbær]

I once saw a map from the early 1950s of the electric inter-city passenger rail system where I live in British Columbia. That made me depressed. Terrible choices were made in the mid twentieth century around transportation infrastructure. The 2002 film 'Road to Perdition' is worth watching for how it depicts the midwest region covered in this video. There are some fantastic scenes of railway stations and Chicago during this exact era.

[@BattleshipOrion]

My town use to be a hub for an old intercity hub that ceased operation in 1932 The line ran from Dayton, Ohio to Findlay, Ohio and had interchanged with the B&O, NYC, and Erie railroads in it's hay day. The old shop in Wapakoneta, Ohio is used now for the Highway Department, and are only a half mile away from the childhood home of Neil Armstrong...yes THAT Neil Armstrong, the one that first stepped on the Moon. As for the old line, it's been ripped up. Part of the old interchange with the NYC in Wapakoneta is used as an industrial spur ending just to the east of I-75, and few exposed sections of the old eastward branch of the inter urban line to St. Marys, Ohio can be seen via satellite, or in person, one of these few sections is an old railroad crossing at the east entrance of the Auglaize County Fair Grounds.

[@martinnyberg6553]

0:21 No sh*t, "mostly feel sad". I'm over here in Sweden and *I* feel sad for you. 😬

[@adambuesser6264]

Are reactivating abandoned lines worth the cost or are there better ways of connection cities and towns?

[@ld4067]

this may go unread but just wanted to say i appreciate what you do and to never doubt yourself. this channel will lead to more people being aware of the problem and lead to more channels and more advocacy. we appreciate you, citynerd!!

[@MultigrainKevinOs]

How the heck were there so many competitors back in the day in trains and transit? It probably explains the mass amounts of investment at the time but man it's depressing now how there is zero interest and investment :(

[@youweremymuse]

I wouldn't say 0 interest or investment! This vid has almost 3k views in less than 30 minutes. And brightline and California HSR are happening. I'm trying to stay positive about the future of American rail, I think most people want it to get better.

[@MultigrainKevinOs]

@@youweremymuse You are right. Stuff is happening, just at a slower pace. I will keep positive too and be a champion for rail in North America! Doomerism doesn't help anyone my apologies.

[@thebigphilbowski]

@@MultigrainKevinOs with all the endless red tape and cost involved I wonder if they feel like it isn't worth the trouble.

[@cheef825]

Massive speculation bubble and ESPECIALLY mail contracts earned from the government

[@edwardmiessner6502]

@@thebigphilbowski Exactly. No one is sure if the Texas Central Railway's first line between Dallas and Houston will ever get built because it spent an inordinate amount of money in state court to secure it's right to use eminent domain powers granted to railroads under Texas law.

[@Somesomesame337]

I just rode the Pacific Surfliner from San Diego to Los Angeles. It was badly delayed, they put passengers from 2 canceled trains on the same train. It was a mess, but it still beat flying or driving. It’s a beautiful route.

[@J-Bahn]

Well there is one bright spot: Brightline (no pun intended) bringing Orlando to Miami from 2 trains per day to like 15 (hopefully).

[@Zed_Oud]

I just road the Coaster. The last US public intercity passenger rail constructed (technically under Amtrak). We waited behind a Costco for 70 minutes for two trains to pass us. And our train was filled to “standing room only”.

[@Zed_Oud]

(Lots of caveats there because Brightline is private, some public inner-city light rail has been constructed since Coaster, and the Downeaster which is inter-state.)

[@IamTheHolypumpkin]

Just recently I read a newspaper article (in German) which was rather interesting. It presented a interesting and strong correlation between the time a countries the railways where nationalized and the well-being of the aforementioned countries rail system today. As one example they brought up the UK. The UK only nationalized it’s rail system after the second worlds war. Well then cam the infamous beaching axe.

[@SamAronow]

The US nationalized a bunch of railways in the late 1970s, but only until they could become profitable again. There was no point in nationalizing writ large because feight rail is still massively profitable.

[@slakcheetah4989]

And what’s sad is this “fantasy Midwest nation state” would have much better rail connections and better transit in general than pretty much any chunk of land you could pull from the Sun Belt or South

[@TheWineroute]

My dad said he could walk a half mile in Milwaukee and get on a interurban and be in Chicago in 90 minutes.

[@drgwdrgw]

It was probably the Chicago, North Shore & Milwaukee Railroad, an electric interurban that quit in 1963.

[@TheWineroute]

It was. but there were opportunities to switch to the NW trains to get through Chicago quickly. Winnetka for instance.@@drgwdrgw

[@markweaver1012]

The South Shore interurban still exists. It's mostly for Northern Indiana commuters, but you can do a day trip to the Indiana Dunes NP on it.

[@docjanos]

This is being watched by a nerd who spent his undergrad years in the early 1970s in the transportation library at Northwestern pouring through actual copies of those Official Railway Guides from the 1920s. To this day I prefer an actual timetable to the abstracted version offered on line. It is analagos to using a paper map vs GPS. Sure GPS is more efficient for a pure A-B trip but a paper map adds the element of wonder and wander, whether you are walking or driving; as in that road looks more scenic or perhaps has better food. Same with timetables, if I take this train I have enough time to detour and have a beer with an old friend. However, I believe that you misinterpret the way that timetables were actually used during rail's heyday. Yes, if your origin and/or destination was a small lightly served locale it was an important study. However, if you made a spur of the moment decision to travel from Detroit to Chicago you just hopped a streetcar or cab to the station, checked the overhead boards and bought a ticket. You can still do this in many European and Japanese cities. If speed or creature comforts mattered then you might consult the pocket timetable of your favorite carrier and do a bit of planning. Not only was the coverage by steam railways complete but so it was with trolleys. The post WWI years marked the peak of the Interruban Era. Only the South Shore Line between Chicago and South Bend is a remannt of this once vast system, which paralleled the steam lines and were competitive on short hauls. Indianapolis was not only a great trunk line terminal but also had an Interurban Terminal with some 11 lines radiating in all directions. While few interurban lines were built more than about 75 miles out from their origin their overlapping nature was such that at the network's peak it was possible to ride from southern Maine to central Wisconsin across an unbroken string of trolley lines.

[@mjohnson9563]

one thing that popped up in my mind today was freight rail. since 1925 freight rail has grown immensely due to the growth of the nation and is now a multi billion dollar industry. freight rail is not too thrilled about passenger rail these days as freight needs as much rail as they can get their hands on. so if there are any new passenger rail systems they most likely will need to build their own tracks and right of ways. the good news is that due to urban rail short distance passenger rail is starting to make a comeback especially with higher speed trains which can cut travel times in half compared to an automobile and due to the relatively short distance of a few hundred miles it does not compete with air travel. as I always say, one thing at a time.