You’re conflating passenger and freight rail, so this comparison doesn’t make sense. I know the point you’re making, but there are a fuckton more rail lines in the US now than you realize—they’re just overwhelming for freight rail.
this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2025
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I’m 99% sure the lower map is showing freight lines. For instance, there is no passenger service in eastern Oklahoma.
What's the difference in passenger vs freight rail? Rails are rails yo, they can use the same exact tracks.
They just finished opening up a rail through our city that goes all the way from New Orleans Louisiana to Mobile Alabama, which they use for both freight trains and also passenger trains.
Freight has priority so passenger has to wait
Nah, not as much as you'd think anyways. They coordinate their schedules pretty well, conveniently for the workers of the companies that need the freight materials to get back and forth to work.
I don't think they're actually using the passenger trains all that much for casual passengers, at least not quite yet. I think at least so far it's mostly to transport workers back and forth to and from work.
But hey, it's something anyways, some level of train progress down this way.
Despite the law being the other way.
Rails are indeed rails, but the map is showing lines. So not the physical tracks themselves (although they're necessary to support rail lines of course), but the routes that are actively running trains.
Which networks does this exclude and include? At the very least it appears not to include regional networks, at least in the second image.
Definitely missing some rail network. I know of lines that were definitely in use but not shown in this map.