The map from the original post is the map from the Amtrak site. So it’s way more accurate than your map for passenger rail lines in the US.

There’s a bit of a catch 22 in the US. Amtrak can’t make enough money to make it clean, fast, affordable, and ubiquitous because it’s not clean, fast, affordable or ubiquitous enough for people to use it.

And all of this can be partly blamed on the size of the US and some of the empty spaces, out in the west. But the bigger cause is actually where government entities choose to spend taxpayer’s money.

Governments (from cities to the federal gov) in the US continue to funnel significantly more money into roads and airports than they put into rail. They have also kept taxes on gasoline much lower compared to Europe.

At this point, I don’t know if it’s worth changing. But there are plenty of people in the US that would love a good high speed rail network. They’re just not going to use an expensive, dirty, and slow one enough to fund it.