Possibly thousands. This is south of Seattle. Because roads were given millions of dollars but railroads were given none and not nationalized, the railroad industry declined rapidly.
Possibly thousands. This is south of Seattle. Because roads were given millions of dollars but railroads were given none and not nationalized, the railroad industry declined rapidly.
I could talk about this for hours. When I was younger, I got very curious about trains and the old rail stations that used to exist before all the big highways. Living in the rural south, I had discovered this from researching history and I used to wonder to myself as a kid; how come no one has created some kind of transportation system that would take us from our rural small towns and into the big cities?
Well, come to find out, Alabama once had rail stations and plans to build rail cars that would've connected all of the big cities across the state and with stops in the rural areas making it easier to navigate the state. All of this was gutted after the auto industry boomed and they installed giant highways and interstates instead.
New Orleans also had rail cars (still do but to a very lesser extent) and plans to build a complete transportation system around the city and state of Louisiana. That too was gutted in favor of the car.
Robert Caro's book 'The Power Broker' is a great run down on Robert Moses and how he constructed the road system of New York City to be based entirely around cars. There is one chapter entirely dedicated to being stuck sitting in traffic for hours. The entire US highway system of interstates and giant roads was done to force the car as the one vehicle everyone has to own and be stuck with.
As late as the 1940s, you could take a train from small Midwest towns pretty much anywhere you wanted to go. My grandparents grew up in small towns/on farms and never had a car as kids. Some of that was the economic, of course, but "lack of being able to get places" was never really something that anybody considered a struggle, because it wasn't! The Iron Horse had you covered, and towns were built so that you could walk, or take the streetcar once they got "big" (as in about 20,000 people)
There is now zero regular passenger train service unless you're within ~70 miles of Chicago (the "Amtrak" routes almost always get bus substitutes)
this is a fun article :
When I was a kid we would go to a train museum and they had a Zephyr there. They also had about 10 miles or so of track to run trains on and one weekend a year they would run the Zephyr on it with passengers. So one year we were lucky enough to get tickets in time. Holy shit that was the most beautiful train I’ve ever been on. From the dinning area to the coach and sleeper cars everything was top 1930s amenities. Damn thing even had A/C. And FAST. Think it got up to around 90 and it was as smooth of a ride as trains I’ve been on in the EU. But only America would throw away something like that to make even more money off of the automobile.