>>1646134Europe has much smaller countries, and no huge amounts of freight to carry across vast distances. Much shipping is done by truck because quantity and distance just don't require trains. For longer distances, we do have train freight trains, and in fact, Switzerland is one of the euro countries with the highest proportion of rail freight at 40%, while the US is at about 47%.
However, in Europe we have a lot of people living much closer together and going to many places. How many people fit in a plane? 200? 300? Our 16-car bilevel trains can carry up to 1200. We need our railways to avoid filling our landscape with highways, and clogging the airspace with planes. So it actually makes a lot more sense to think firstly about passenger rail, with freight rail somewhat subordinated.
