edit: traveled with the transiberian as a tourist, it was full of workers, business man, students, whatever, hopping on and of in different places for connections or destinations. Best human experience ever in all three classes.
Edit2: definitely not high speed. I think that’s a better way of life.
East of the Mississippi, the population density of the US is not that much lower than that of the EU, anyways. Within some relatively large regions of the US, such as the Northeast Megalopolis, the population density is higher than most of Western Europe.
I'm curious what you intend by your comparison to the Russian train system -- Russia has more distance to cover/is more spread out, but the U.S. has over twice as many miles of track. I'm pretty confident that that comparison doesn't hold if we compare passenger rail miles, but I think the point is that the track is there in the U.S., it's just that few people here find passenger rail compelling as an alternative to car/plane transportation.
I share most of your view. There's no physic problem in the US against more train usage. I'm not a politician but it seems there's so many more public incentives in favor of cars and planes that it's a more sensible choice for Americans to use them. Trains are not intrinsically worse in the US, they just aren't helped the same way roads, fuel and airports are.
The quality of life, in times of peace, does seem comparable to that of rural U.S.. Adding to that, U.S. households are orders of magnitude more personally indebted than Russia.
I don't buy the "wealth" argument. A nation's wealth says little about how wealthy, in practice, its residents are.
Moreover, I've never heard of a long-distance passenger train being delayed or cancelled in Russia. Granted, I mostly knew about major trains to major destinations from Moscow/Saint Petersburg. Not a single person I knew had a plan for "the train is cancelled/delayed". Like, forgetting ID is more likely. I've heard it's a USSR legacy where passenger trains had much higher priority than even freight trains. Flight cancellations or delays - sure, they do happen.
Local trains even in these major cities do get delayed (around 2-5 minutes is typical, very rarely up to 30 minutes) or cancelled. Delays are in the moment, cancellations are typically announced a day or two in advance, as I was told.
"11 trains are late for at least two hours" makes regional news.
Revealed preference. Usage of train travel (public transit in general) goes down with income, and people in the US have an order of magnitude more disposable income versus Russia.
The take rate of air conditioning in subsaharan Africa is far lower compared to similar-climate places like Florida, but I wouldn't use that fact to posit that sans-AC is somehow better.
People with other options don’t take the train in (most of) the USA because the trains in (most of) the USA are bad.
Of course the US is far larger than any single EU country, but the cities aren’t evenly distributed. There are many clusters of decently-close cities, and vast areas with very few large cities at all. Salt Lake or Denver may never have much useful intercity rail, but lots of regions could have it if we chose to build it (and learn from those who build it well, unlike California HSR).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rail_transport_in_Russia
edit: traveled with the transiberian as a tourist, it was full of workers, business man, students, whatever, hopping on and of in different places for connections or destinations. Best human experience ever in all three classes.
Edit2: definitely not high speed. I think that’s a better way of life.