system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
As a country that is vastly spread out, why does the U.S. have very few passenger trains?

I've been wanting to experience a train ride but all we have are really awful (and slow) passenger trains. It would take me 3 hours to drive from Houston to Austin, and the train ride estimates 7 1/2 hours.

What happened to trains as transportation in America?
gpt
Trains are less effective in the US *because* we are spread out.

Trains work really well when a lot of people at point A want to get to point B on a regular basis.  In Europe, the population is denser and more centralized.  A train going from Paris to Brussels connects about 30 million people.  Houston to Austin is about the same distance, and connects maybe 8 million.  On top of that, Houston is far more spread out...you might be travelling an hour just to get to the train station.

Spread out means more stops to service fewer people, and that's when trains stop making sense.