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I'll pass up on the lack of a standardized work week, the child labor, and the general robber barons, but passenger rail does need to make a comeback.
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We do have passenger rail, just not nearly enough. We even have luxury/private passenger rail.
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I just checked Amtrak. I can hop on a one way train from Houston to Portland. The journey takes 4 days (not counting delays) and costs $1,700.
It's cheaper to fly and faster to drive. Are we really to believe that companies like Ford, GM, BNSF, CSX, Union Pacific, Boeing, American Airlines, and Delta have nothing to do with this and that it's genuinely the free market at work? Ofc not. Amtrak is a government agency. The government can and should use eminent domain to seize ownership of the entire rail network and fairly compensate the current owners for their stakes. In short, nationalize the rails.
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The United States has more usable rail miles than all of Europe combined. But it's limited to freight traffic only. Amtrak has to lease time on the rails, which is why it's pricey
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Also, "usable" does not mean "useful". Most rail in the US is incredibly out of maintenance, and deeply limited on top speed as a result. Many trains aren't going above 60MPH at any point in their journey not because of length or power, but because the rails (or the cars, or the engine) simply won't allow anyone to go faster SAFELY.
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No doubt, it is just funny to be that passenger rail is so out of fashion in the US that most of the population things the rails simply don't exist, when they clearly do, in droves even. They are just privately owned and rarely shared.
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In wish the uk renationalised the rails. Privatisation of public transport was one of the worst decisions. Thanks Thatcher.
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Its more of a luxury than a convenience anywhere outside of the NE corridor. Utterly infuriating.
Our oligarchs surprisingly also have a lot less money that the Gilded Age robber barons.
People think Elon Musk is richest man ever at $194 billion. However adjusted for inflation, here's where the Gilded Age barons stood.
- Vanderbilt was $200 billion
- Rockefeller was at $440 billion
- Carnegie was at over $310 billion
- Astor was $120 billion
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If I was rich I'd love to just live in a private multi-train car and just travel from city to city like a luxury van life. Ideally my friends would also have their own train cars.
I'd roll into a city and hang out there for a few weeks or months (I'm sure I'd be able to throw money at someone to store my train cars) and then when I get bored, I'd hitch my cars to a new train and roll on out to a new city.
If I was rich Iβd love to just live in a private multi-train car and just travel from city to city like a luxury van life. Ideally my friends would also have their own train cars.
Are you sure you're not describing a Snowpiercer prequel?
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I know a lady who does that. She pays the railroad company to hitch her private car to their train and travels around. She also owns a Snow-Cat and runs around Mt. Hood with it sometimes.
