For the map enthused!
Rules:
post relevant content: interesting, informative, and/or pretty maps
be nice
The US absolutely needs more and better trains. But also, the US has large areas with no population. That's why when you look at electoral maps you need to control population density.
Even with a high quality rail system with support for populated areas of the US the map would still have large gaps and wouldn't be nearly as full as the EU map.
Simply putting two maps side by side and saying "this one bad" isn't great. Yes, it's absolutely bad, but for the exact reasons this map shows.
US also has the advantage of being one big federation with established standards bodies and a federal budget. A train that goes Between Belgium, Netherlands, Germany has to pass through 3 different electrical standards (yes, they are very different), 2 traffic regulations (left or right side), and 3 signalization standards. And they make it work.
Yeah, but excluding entire states is ridiculous.
Exactly. Every state has a major population hub. Excluding major cities is pretty bad. Except Wyoming. No one fucking lives in Wyoming. Why are they even a state...
In the vague defense of Wyoming and the other great planes states, quite a lot of their population growth was hindered or outright shrank due to the dust bowl which they haven't recovered from. It's kinda like how Russia goes through a population dip every 20 years or so due to the sheer number of people who died during WW2.
South Dakota only has two cities with populations over 50,000.
Another state that shouldn't exist
Is it? There are entire states with populations less than that of major cities.
Is this joke?
No :(
It gets cut off here, but Estonia only has like 4 lines or something, all from the capital in the north. No interconnection between the other cities except through the capital, and for two of the lines about 30 km away from the capital. It really sucks, I wish there was more and I'm also hoping for Rail Baltica to be ready sooner rather than later. And I REALLY wish there was a way to connect Tartu, Viljandi and Pärnu to each other directly - right now you have to make a near 200 km detour to get between the first two, and Pärnu is disconnected altogether until Rail Baltica is finished, the Tallinn-Pärnu line is dead. Sadly though, that dream route of mine (which would connect two culturally significant cities (Tartu and Viljandi) to each other and to the future Rail Baltica line in a slightly less detour-y fashion) will likely never exist because of all the wetlands in between those cities. I am glad they're being preserved, but... trains would be nice.
And Europe is zoomed in too
And, living in enclaves as I have, I always think we don't have much. But it's kinda terrifying how bad the US have it.
Well, they make up for it with planes. They can move around. It's just awfully polluting
My baby doesn't take the morning train?
In Europe there is definitely a difference between TGV quality lines and the regional ones which are rarely better than taking the car, sadly (speaking from my years of experience).
I wonder what the map would look like if you at least greyed out the slow lines.