Living in Switzerland here. I take rail and high speed rail everywhere. Amsterdam to Palermo (Sicily). London to Vienna. Long distance public transportation (high speed or otherwise) won't work without a robust regional and local network, including last mile. If you have to rent a car at the terminus to get to your final destination, most people will fly or drive.

Man I wish he explained how the interstate highway system got better, it required taking a large sum from the railroad funding for that project.

Buffet’s railroad takes advantage of a legal loophole that gives it a monopoly on last mile delivery of coal to the power generating stations. They make as much money on a short haul as the rail company that delivers coal thousands of miles from the mines to Buffet’s rail company territory.

The last chapter misses the fact that Safety has gone down significantly, Class I railroads are also operating skeleton crews which has caused a massive uptick in accidents, derailments have skyrocketed. Not to mention the insane conditions they are working in right now. Majority of the big railroad companies refuse to invest into upgrading existing infrastructure, the infrastructure in question wasn't built for "monster trains" their running these days, which are way heavier and incredibly long. EDIT: Derailments have not skyrocketed, incidents have but derailments have only increased above pre-pandemic levels, they are nowhere near as bad as the 1970’s. Making this edit cause I do not like spreading misinformation

Buffett likes to invest in companies with a competitive moat. BNSF and the other Class I rail companies have massive moats - it seems extremely unlikely there will ever be competitors to them, is someone going to lay down thousands of miles of new track across the US? Almost certainly not. So BNSF, UP, CSX, etc - they all now have modern monopolies and they are again ruthlessly leveraging them.

Free public roads? You should look into intermodal hubs like the one built outside of Chicago in Joliet, it already had a rich rail infrastructure due to, well, Chicago and the history of rail in the country. Roads, on the other hand, were NOT meant to handle the sudden surge in truck traffic: roads are wearing out faster, bridges are aging more rapidly than they should, and none of these shipping companies contribute a penny more than they have to for upkeep and upgrades.

there's no "market" when the class Is have regional monopolies. the existing network has become more concentrated, brittle, and less robust, and is optimized for container movement and unit trains. the only companies moving non-unit freight (boxcars and the like) frequently don't have any other options. the regional monopolies know this, and statements from the privatization of BNSF are tacit admissions of a desire to extract maximum profit from captive customers. If the US really wanted private trucking-level or airline-level competition over rail, the core rail network would need to be nationalized, with centralized dispatch (like air traffic control), and system-wide standardized signaling. The railroad companies would remain in charge of individual trains and terminals, similar to airports. I'm not holding my breath. Trains remain the most energy-efficient method of land transportation; it's ironic that the least-efficient methods in the form of air and road are the ones that are socialized.

Old regulation is just like legacy code. It should be revisited periodically. What enabled something in the past may be holding things back in the future. Great wrap up on how US railways got sandwiched in between new developments in transport and old regulation. And a spot on remark on that rail transport tends to get billed for use of track whereas trucks can mostly travel on roads for free.

The problem with American railroads isnt nessisarly the problem. The main issue was the double whammy of over regulation in response to 1800's railroad tomfoolery, and the simultaneous gross underregulation and outright subsidization of the Automobile and trucking industry. Quite frankly, the railroads got their just deserts for their gross profiteering in the 1800s. However, the Automobile and Oil industries, despite at this point making the 1800's railroad baron look like John Charity himself, have avoided any such just deserts.

Excellent video. US rail history is a fascinating topic and I hope to see you do more videos on them. Three points: (1) Part of the overreliance on debt came from the major railroads constantly overexpanding to lock out competition on track/geo coverage and rolling stock efficiency/capacity. These geo-monopolies mostly carried to today's freight rail networks, which have a very real negative impact on domestic passenger rail performance and expansion. (2) The Pennsylvania Railroad considered themselves untouchable. They depended heavily on passenger rail and overextended their available capital. By the time they were forced to realize their dire financial situation, it was too late. In contrast, New York Central's last leaders saw the shift towards freight/intermodal and began taking aggressive action towards it. Unfortunately, the merger foolishly let the Pennsy's ignorant Mainline-mentality management win control, guaranteeing its death. It is an excellent example of competing cultures and management. (3) Regarding your last chapter, yes, revenue has risen but at the cost of maintenance and safety. As we have seen in recent years, on-time performance is all that matters even if that means skeleton crews, overworked engineers, and a length some claim are unsafe, ultimately leading to derailments.

A weird trivia is that the Texas Railway Commission has nothing to do with trains... I have a friend heading the CA high speed rail, after having moved on from working on the Taoyuan metro. He said first train is expected to run 2030-2033.

There are dozens of routes where HSR would work in the US. “Too far” is someone telling you NYC to LA wouldn’t work.

Efficiency measured in revenue?????????????? Okay I guess subsidies are efficiency now. Just dump money on it, wow so efficient!!!

I don't really agree with your take on High Speed Rail. America is broken up into many different regions. I don't believe that having a High Speed line from NY to CA makes sense but connecting cities within each region. Example, NYC to DC or Boston, Seattle to Vancouver, Chicago Hub, Texas, or Atlanta to Charlotte, etc. If regional airlines can exist so can High Speed Rail.

To this day there is absolutely no limit to how long a train can block a road. States or cities can't even pass laws to enforce a limit.

0:32 how is US freight rail more profitable, if it has 3 cents per tonne-km, russians have 4 cents, chinese - 5 cents?! 4:18 you had 5 mln cars and 400 trucks? WTF?! 4:33 is there a "non-exclusive" monopoly?!

@17:20 so the hedge fund manager prefers trucks because they hate actual capital investment, hate unions, think that trucks are more fuel efficient than trains (which they are demonstrably not, it's basic physics), doesn't realize that trains also run on Diesel, and that public roads are "free." Yeah, that about says it all about the supposed genius of the capitalist investor class.....

A somewhat related vid topic would be the package delivery industry. ( UPS / Fed EX / REA Express ) From what I understand, until the 1980's or so there were some odd restrictions on a company being able to singularly offer delivery service from one end of the USA to the other.

This is of course leaving aside the various shortcomings of this policy for US railways such as... *Reducing maintenance on track infrastructure *Reduced maintenance on locomotives and rolling stock, which is more intensively used. *Longer trains causing traffic jams as they can't fit into sidings. *Overworked crews, which leads to an increase in mistakes. *Ignored safety procedures. *Blocked crossing. *Increased risks of derailment. *Trains unable to pass each other due to passing sidings being too short.

American freight rail companies had been held to 1935 productivity levels all the way to 1980 by labor-owned regulators. Ten years after regulatory escape in 1980, they've reached 1990 productivity levels. Then, oddly, after this huge 150% leap, productivity increases stop cold.

Those regulations that hampered the train industry is what Atlas Shrugged is all about.

Government never should have sold Conrail. I mean, The Staggers Act still needed to happen, but yeah...Conrail Quality! It's funny though. Now we have an Oligopoly that actively tries to NOT actually bolster the usage of rail for transport, but rather engage in PSR and actively discourage any sort of deviation from it.

Implying the rail companies are investing in the infrastructure is asinine

There are about 3 U.S. train derailments per day. In 2022, there were at least 1,164 train derailments across the country last year, according to data from the Federal Railroad Administration.

The US isn't too spread out for high speed rail. We have tons of people who do very long road trips. What makes high speed rail difficult in the US is we forgot how to build rail infrastructure (the expertise is literally gone), and like with freight, they have a hard time competing with free roads and free parking.

Australia's government owned railways were a financial disaster, until they were semi-privatized. The rail tracks remain nationally owned, but private companies can pay for access to run private freight services. Previously, private companies had rorted government rail, by overloading wagons, and getting contracts which had clauses like time performance inter city, that were usually un-acheivable, giving these private freight forwarders free freight. There was horrific corruption going on behind the scenes, but thankfully those days are over. Rail,ships and Road all have their economic place in transport. The best and most flexible model, is having government owned infrastructure, with open and equal access for private interests to provide services that make sense both practically and economically. Every single example of shared infrastructure from roads,rails,gas pipelines,phone lines to especially MONEY needs to be government owned with access for private people and companies to use for the communities economic benefit with being taxed beyond cost to operate,or monopolized.

The fall and failure to rise of American passenger rail would be an interesting topic for a video of its own, because the reasons go way beyond "America big." The California high speed rail project is a typical example of trying to cover too many bases in one project: is it meant to compete against airlines (fast) or highways (an exit in every town)? It tries to do both and ends up succeeding in neither.

you say how great deregulation is? so great that railroads are only too happy to use absurdly out of date safety equipment, check it rarely, and dodge most liability when things go wrong.

Public roads are not "free". The interstate highway system was built and is maintained with billions of dollars collected in taxes by the government. All public roads are built with tax dollars for that matter. This is a classic example of an industry succeeding in the marketplace by being able to externalize major costs that the railroads couldn't (or were not willing to). Its also a case study on the unintentional breakup of a monopoly by publicly indirectly financing an industry that competes with it. 2nd point, although deregulation has led to market success of the freight companies, that has come at the expense of passenger rail. Amtrak is wholly dependent outside of the NE Corridor, on the freight companies for the rights of way for its routes. This is disastrous for maintaining punctuality as trains are routinely delayed for hours due to the freight companies not prioritizing passenger traffic as they are mandated under law. Plus it has no ability to invest in infrastructure to improve service. And it is hamstrung by Congress by being forced to maintain routes that lose a lot of money. Passenger rail can make money is the US if Amtrak were allowed to operate in the same manner that private freight companies operate. (The NE Corridor is still profitable) And it should have received more track previously owned by the PRR as ConRail did. Amtrak would be operating on a much smaller footprint but it would be profitable. Last point, HSR in the United States can work. It will have to be short haul travel though. Connectors between major cities like San Diego to LA, San Francisco to Sacramento, Portland, Seattle to Vancouver, BC, Chicago, Detroit to Toronto, and Houston to Dallas are good candidates for HSR service Brightline may yet prove that private passenger rail service can work when the Las Vegas to LA route to opened. Once those routes are operating, then perhaps longer routes out to 500-700 miles should be considered

The brief history of the railroads presented in this video should be a hint to Ayn Rand followers that her view of the railroads as her symbol for how great accomplishments come from a few great men unhindered by government was as daft as her every-moving ideas of "selfishness" and general campfire "philosophy." They are fun books as early super-hero stories, which accounts for a lot of the popularity, but beyond that ...

The US is suitable for high speed rail. But only on short to mid range distances. Nobody every said that you should go by high speed train from Chicago to Orlando. But short distinances between big cities are plenty of connections high speed rail in the US makes perfect sense.

High speed rail can be competitive in North America. Let's compare Toronto_Montreal to Paris_Lyon (the first high speed rail outside Japan). Both cities are ≈ 500 km apart and have roughly the same respective populations. When the line opened in 1981, the airlines had to cut service between Paris and Lyon, because they could not compete against the train. 7 years later, the whole line was paid for: land acquisition, the tracks, the electric overhead lines, the signaling system, the trains (DOH!) and also the 25+ years of R&D that made the iconic TGV possible. Oh, and not a single penny of government money was paid into the project. The SNCF totally financed the project by itself. This means that for the last 35 years, that rail line has been the proverbial gravy train. And no, the population density between the cities does not matter because the train does not stop between the line ends...

Two of the largest railways in North America are the CNR (Canadian National Railway) and the CPKC (Canadian Pacific Kansas City Southern). Canada has relatively few people and vast expanses of land, so these freight railways are vital.

Very interesting. Any chance you could do a video on the history of the British rail system, the world's first. Expansion, becoming mainly a commuter system, Beeching cuts, nationalisation, disastrous privatisation, wasting billions on a half built HS2 instead of revamping the existing system etc.

I see new Asianometry. I watch new Asianomrtry.

The graph that starts @15:55 is missing a couple of lines, safety (number of accidents) and wage growth :p

I'm glad someone made a video with a different perspective on privatization of the Class 1's, but man is it biased towards capital. There's no mentions of the consequences of PSR, longer freight trains, worsening of on time performance for freight and passenger rail, how shipping anything other than unit freight trains takes 5x the time as trucking, and how the trucking industry regulations starting set are making rail competitive as a result. American freight has become an example of over optimization at this point

Is that a Russian freight train at 7:37?

I live in northern Arizona and was a bit suprised when in 2000 I purchased my 5 acres (2 Ha) and about 9 miles (14 km) from the railroad, the mineral rights were still owned by BNSF railroad. It really shows just how much of the land the railroads owned and how if new mineral exploitations develop they are set to profit, well over 100 years later.

First airmail route was from Tampa to St Pete. You correctly feature an image advertising this, but incorrectly state that it was from DC to NY. I think you owe Tony Jannus an apology.

Love the videos. The Utica people are all like "It's You-Tick-Ah". Always enjoy when Utica, NY gets some love on the internet.

To an extend the way US freight system is setup any form of passenger transportation is mostly dead except around large cities. How much money did the US goverment put in the rail system and how much was put in the road system/highway system. And hence we now have long single track routes with passage tracks. Plenty of larger cities can be connected with high speed trains over distance upto a few hundred miles. But all infrastructure has been stripped to make it cheaper the infrastructure maintenance....

Nationalization of trackage is a reasonable idea to re-create competition and compete with trucking (with free highways). None of the huge railroads created by mergers are innovative, and track choke-points have been created due to shutting down lines due to those mergers, no longer serving certain markets at all. With this, wages are poor as is moral. This is not healthy for the long-run. For nation-wide HSR, you would need to build all new track designed for passenger service - $$$. The cost is just too high for a nation as spread out as ours compared to the free cost of air, that you don't have to build or maintain. Regional where it makes sense, but not national. Nobody is going to choose (unless for pleasure), even HSR vs a plane to go from coast to coast, or even half way, it simply takes too long.

My grandfather was a section foreman for C&O, then Chessie, then CSX so I think it's pretty cool that you covered this. 🙂

As an IT person, government caps on AWS and Azure don't sound bad. Probably other controls I'd rather see on them first, though. Not sure that the cost of the datacenter is comparable to value of the cargo though. That would be like capping costs based on the value of the track. The obvious comparison would be capping based on some sense of value of what was being served. Of course much harder to estimate that than the value cargo

Enjoyed this video. I am glad US freight rail recovered, though I do share others' safety concerns. My job takes me to Germany regularly, and I make significant use of their passenger rail system while there, local, regional, and cross-country. I wish the US, outside of a few large cities, had high-speed intra and interstate rail. A high-speed line connecting NYC with Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo would be perfect. I don't think it will happen without significant government investment. Also, one correction. Utica, NY, is pronounced You-tica.

Trans World didn't exist in 1929 in any form. The company that later became Trans World was founded in 1930 by a merger of a bunch of predecessor companies, which formed Transcontinental and Western Air - which was known as TWA. Only in 1950 did the airline rename itself Trans World Airlines - choosing a more modern name that had the same acronym.

I always enjoy visiting the railroad museum in Sacramento. They still have the mock up HSR that we voted on to connect LA, SF and LV on display. Among other amazing artifacts, that one always is tough to walk into. I remember voting on it back when I turned 18. I'm 39 now.

Shame that the supposedly immutable freight rail priority has completed removed the competitiveness of passenger travel against other forms of travel.

If you look at the USA as a whole, yes it is too big for high speed rail, but individual states and journeys between neighbouring states are not. The Federal Government should set standards - eg standard guage track, 25kVac overhead lines of a specific height above the track, etc, and then the actual services should be organised by State and Regional governments. Before the current situation in Russia, it was possible to travel from London to Hong Kong by train. You will find some videos on KZfaq of people doing that, but the vast majority of people take the plane. However, for London to Paris, Madrid to Barcelona etc, you take the train. Likewise, if you want to get from Los Angeles to New York, you are going to take a plane unless you particularly hate them, particularly love trains, or want to make a KZfaq video about the journey, and for the latter you are probably only going to take the train one way and fly back. Los Angeles to San Francisco or Las Vegas, those are journeys that should have a high-speed rail option. If for example you were to build a high-speed line from Miami Floria to Portland Maine, very few people would take it the full distance, but a lot of people would take it for one or two stops along the route.

Asianometry =Americanometry

And only two derailments this week! Both hazmat evacuations, of course. Yep, our freight trains are in great shape. Yup.

so sad US gave up on its main infrastructure asset, its railway networks.

Government regulates competition between trains, trucks, airplanes and ships with taxes, subsidies, and rules. Unfortunately, there are many groups wanting different things, and outcomes are often dependent on political considerations over economics. Thus, you have clever entrepreneurs who take advantage of the current situation. As long as you have complexity, it will take a bright person to get around the current situation. Politicians still exist, and constantly change the rules, so what works one year might not work the next.

I never thought I would see my hometown in an Asianometry thumbnail

Rate deregulation and some of the deregulations around manditory services (see passenger and extremely umprofutable lines) have definitly been a boon to almost all stakeholders in the US rail system, but it's also apparent that hesitancy to regulate the social ills created by railroads (see blocked crossings, derailments, and extremely poor crew conditions) has chipped away at the gains the regulation lean enviroment was meant to create. Personally I advocate a nationalized rails, privitized trains model as I feel that it will allow the government to leverage it's strength of being able to do long term management of large projects while still allowing the engine of creativity that is the profit motive to have some sway in this industry. Ultimately well functioning rail is essential to a well functioning national economy (trucks can really only haul so much and are horrifically inefficient fuel-wise, monetarily, and from a climate perspective) and private companies owning the rails and trains have a mixed record on that.

Utica is pronounced Yewtika, not ootika... Utica is an interesting place, home of two notable airlines, Mohawk Airlines and Empire Airlines, and for some reason, the birthplace of the founder (Kenny Friedkin) of a third, Pacific Southwest Airlines (which many view as the original low cost carrier - it inspired Southwest Airlines). Must be something in the water there.

Penn Central, the most profitable airline (there was a lot of embezzelment, and crazy shit that happened near the end of the railroad that lead to its bankruptcy)

Australia has been investing in an inland rail system for freight.. Hope it plays a major role going forward

This is a perfect example of the real problems with regulation. Yes, it is absolutely possible for smart government regulation to make things better -- but everyone underestimates how fucking hard it is to actually realize smart regulation. The regulators tend to either end up captured by industry or stick to anti-competitive and inefficient regulations. The real problem is the incentivizes for the regulators. The thing they actually need to do -- encourage healthy competition, efficiency increasing innovation (ie job cuts) and let investors take the hit when things go wrong while making capital investment appealing -- don't make any constituency happy. The beneficiaries of good regulation are the widely distributed American people but that doesn't particularly please either the investors, workers or politicians. And when you do it right that means both letting big companies go bust in bad times and accepting the massive job losses while letting investors make substantial profits when things go well -- in both cases making you look like the bad guy. It's not impossible but it's very hard.

Recommend the book "The Men Who Loved Trains" (Rush Loving) about the subject

TBH the excuse that the US is so spread out therefore no HSR is possible is kinda trash. Ok, you can't possibly think of connecting Montana with Wyoming with high speed rail, sure, but the fact that there isn't a network that spans the whole North-East/New England area up to Chicago is just bokers. It's a very densely populated, very high income and extremely full of business area, it's perfect for a HSR network. If Spain can make it happen, there's no reason why the US can't in its most densely populated area

I feel like high speed rail vs car or airplane... there's gotta be a pretty straightforward calculation there on what's more economical based on population density, and "destination density".

The increased length of trains comes with its own set of problems and I hear railroad companies are skimping on personnel and safety. I believe John Oliver's video on the topic could explain the what and why better than me.

I think you missed the point of high speed rail networks at the end there: it's the NETWORK effect, not the end point to end point line. There is a reason the US built a highway NETWORK rather than three coast to coast highways to speed up troop movements in case of war (the intention of the Highways Act). The more area a network covers the more its value increases. Just as Harrington, Morgan, Vanderbilt and all the other rail barons. What started as schemes to stymie rivals with short lines to poach traffic from rival coast to coast lines in the late 19th century became networks in the early 20th century. Also, the sale of ConRail back to the private sector was a give away at $2Bn. That was a $6Bn subsidy. It wasn't the miracle of private enterprise that rebuilt the railways, it was government money, as can be attested to by the amount of crashes due to failing infrastructure and failure to invest in new equipment (while spending millions on opposing requirements for important safety equipment), on those privatized railways every year.

This is the first Asianometry video I watched where it is pretty apparent that this video is very out of your comfort/knowledge zone. Nevertheless I enjoyed the coverage of the historical events, but especially in the latter half your explanations of current day issues seems quite shallow. Which is understandable because it crosses with a huge amount of different policies across different transportation methods such that it's difficult for one person that isn't already familiar with them to make a video about it. Just try to refrain from making absolute statements about the current day economic efficacy of things you don't fully understand, since people that usually watch your videos assume that they are well researched.

Trains are so cool....they really held us together during covid, and now the ability to move freight east to west coast & vice versa has helped tremendously in these recent days of supply chain disturbances and drought in Panama..... Your choices of topics have been quite germane to current events - cheers ... And as the song goes, "these are the days of miracles and wonders..." And one of these wonders has been the people who jump trains for amusement or just wanderlust....plenty of these adventures here on YT. Trains are a great way to travel, but less here than in Nexico or in Europe. I got to ride Ferrocarriles de México for a couple weeks when I was a kid......that was an adventure! Cheers....

4:08 "Utica* as in you-tik-a, not like choo-choo-tica.

Right great for the companies, not so great for the employees who suffer to this day. There has to be a happy medium struck between the two somehow.

Can someone explain why high speed rail won't work in a huge and spread out area? Isn't the advantage of high speed rail that you can go longer distances than a bus and just short of that of a plane at lower cost per ton? So shouldn't HSR favor longer distances?

Whomever can aggregate the most capital wins. For a long time the railroads in the US were king. They had the cash and could pay regulators and the government the correct amounts to keep them in power. I suggest if you have time, to study the highway lobby. This group of oil, rubber, asphalt and automotive industries with others simply showed up with more money, ripped up trolley and rail lines whilst building out the highway system and vehicle fleet. The railroads had zero push back in this affair. They had already had their moment of wild expansion and now, if Rockefeller told them what to charge to move crude oil? They did what they were told. Economically, why did this happen? Capital goes to growth and automotive/highway and associated was exploding while rail was contracting. The reason the railroads suffered so long? The highway lobby wanted them to. Railroads are actually a very efficient competitor for trucks and highways. The highway lobby knew this and it was to their benefit to keep pressure on the ever suffering railroads. As far as passenger trains? They require government backing and the highway lobby can apply far more pressure on the government than a silly little passenger rail line concept could ever do. I've lived in Europe and the passenger lines work so well because they were installed and built their political base/or were nationalized long before the tire, car and asphalt interests achieved lobbying power. Thank you for your videos.

Interesting. We know so little about America despite having the illusion through television that we do know America.

Class Is currently running it into the ground

Nice episode. Thanks!

No mention how the government bankrupted so many Class I railroad's while mandating they provide passenger service???

@9:01 you say video cameras? I thought it wasn't until the late 60s that video tape came out?

Touching on the interstate commerce clause, the most abused and distorted of all amendments. Just remember that the federal case against someone growing and smoking weed in their own home was upheld as a valid federal law under the interstate commerce clause because if they had not grown it, they would have bought it, and the weed might have crossed state lines. lol, FDR

Here in the Los Angeles/Long Beach ports, they upgraded the rail lines quite a few years ago. No way could all the containers coming from Asia be trucked across the LA county basin.

Quick correction. The US didn’t actually nationalize the railroads themselves in WWI, it just took control of their operations. The railroads remained privately owned for the duration of the war and actually made money off of the government traffic. The US government couldn’t have afforded to actually nationalize the railroads, because in the US, the Takings Clause of the Constitution requires the government to provide fair compensation for anything it takes. So the government couldn’t have just seized the railroads, it would have had to effectively buy them at fair market value. The reason this was not an issue for the creation of Conrail was that the railroads it nationalized were so broke that they had no actual value, so there was no price for the government to pay.

love these videos man

Very interesting. A better title would be “How America Stopped Forcing Rail Lines Failures.” ❤

It's funny how almost all videos of trains in this video are russian/post-soviet

here is q question. Did the original owners get back their companies after nationalization or new owners took it over?

We still need a more balanced approach to US rail in general. As it is, US passenger rail service is held hostage to the four-way hegemony of the largest freight carriers. Also, labor conditions are incredibly bad. Regulation itself is not bad, but it's a matter of how it's administered and the incentive structures in place. A tendency in our current politics is to decide just because something by the government goes badly, then government can't do anything at all and shouldn't even try. We can't keep being so shortsighted.

From what you hear these days they are still circling the drain in a downwards spiral, refusing and/or not able to invest in the now 100+ y.o. decaying infrastructure and launching gigantic length poorly maintained trains with barely any brakes or crew that sometimes explode and raze half a small town in the process after missing a corner. There probably should have been a continental wide infrastructure planning process at some point to make big arteries capable of taking current day volumes and weight and secondary lanes to smaller cities so at least the main part could be electrified and maintained properly. But now it seems way too late for that with nimby in the equation aswell and fed gov already massively in debt to finance any of that.

How’s that California high speed rail project working out for you???

Ah, my favorite Asian country: America

Excellent overview.

You did NOT just say that about high speed rail......

Too bad our commuter train system haven't seen much love since the 1950s. Train stations have become bus stations to homeless shelters to ruins.

Regulations, not even once

Great video. The railroad monopolies were the perfect example of why you can't have a true "free market economy" without regulation. Greed, corruption & power will take over every time. Also, 17:14 the "public roads" are not "free" they're being subsidized by tax payers, toll-payers, & taxes on gasoline & diesel, so maintaining the infrastructure was just shifted to the citizens. BTW, as vehicles shift from fossil fuels to electric, the highway maintenance tax money from fuel will dry up so they'll have to start taxing electricity..translation: any savings will be short lived..

The US isn't "too big and spread out" for high-speed rail. California HSR, the Texas Triangle, and the Northeast Corridor all have routes connecting cities that are 200-400 miles apart, which is time-competitive with both driving and flying. The issues are that a) the cities themselves are large and spread out, so it's harder to get a transit connection to the HSR station, and b) the regulatory environment and underfunded civil service have made the costs for building HSR higher than in any other developed country (with the possible exception of the UK). I'd recommend reading Alon Levy's blog Pedestrian Observations for more info about this topic.

Deregulation did not save the industry. It is the capability to adapt to current trends that did, because the regulatory body did not evolve. Yet regulatory body, if provided with the right tools, can also adapt. Instead, they left the care of adapting to the railroad companies themselfes, which did it in order to survive, but also went beyond and cut on infrastructure and safety spendings in order to up their profit margins. Deregulation brings chaos, not prosperity.

you need to do the rise and fall for this

7:48 “Ramsey pricing as it is so theroretically called-maximises ‘social value’ or whatever” 🤦 You saw the word ‘social’ and immediately decided it was communism? Look at the way it's defined: The sum of producer and consumer surplus.

"I doubt passenger highspeed rail is ecomical, becouse america is so huge and spread out" You should watch "not just bikes", he has a video specifically to address this big misconception.

17:00 Berkshire Hathaway invest 26 per cent for BNSF ($26bn for 100%)

I heard they've never heard of hamburgers being called steamed hams in Utica.

I think you need a lesson on economics. How does government regulation help an industry compete? I suggest The Progressive Era by Rothbard.