From a reader:

Dear Mr. Goldberg, It always surprises me that people think that the US rail system is in bad shape, whereas the European one is a model to be emulated. In 2000, 38.0% of US freight (on a ton-mile basis) went by rail vs. 26.6% on the roads. In contrast in Europe 7.8% went by rails and 43.9% went by road. I know this goes against conventional wisdom, but it’s true. Those figures came from the paper “Nature or Nurture: Why Do Railroads Carry a Greater Freight Share In The United States Than In Europe”, published by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, and available at www.ksg.harvard.edu/taubmancenter/pdfs/working_papers/fagan_vassallo_05_ rail.pdf . Simply put, the US puts its freight on rails and its passengers on roads, whereas Europe puts its passengers on rails and its freight on roads. The US rail network is highly efficient – in computer terms it is optimized for bandwidth at the cost of latency. Passenger rail networks are inherently inefficient, as they are optimized for minimum latency, at the cost of bandwidth. Soybeans don’t care much if they get to their destination tomorrow or next week, but people sure do. The carbon impact of switching the US system to a European-style system would be hard to evaluate. Qualitatively, there’d be fewer cars on the roads, but more heavy trucks. However, the total number of train operations would have to go down (assuming no new rail line construction) as passenger trains run on fairly rigid schedules. And of course, you would take a highly profitable industry and turn it into one that requires subsidies.