As others have said. Freight is first in the US. I imagine Europe probably has more semis on the road transporting cargo. Except for special routes, passenger travel by rail is only for those dedicated individuals.
> I imagine Europe probably has more semis on the road transporting cargo.
They absolutely do: unlike the US where more freight is transported by rail than truck, the opposite is true in Europe. And personally I think this is the right tradeoff. The efficiencies of rail over road vehicles scale up with mass. The US has 200 car freight trains hauling 400 shipping containers at a time; compared to 400 semi trucks that’s a massive improvement. European freight rail isn’t even capable of this level of scale; their railroads have maximum train lengths well below the US average.
Freight is also much less fussy than passengers when it comes to scheduling, comfort, or speed, which is why this level of scale is possible for freight rail and not passenger rail.
