First Train In The World

Amtrak:
1) Inconvenient - Slowest mode of transportation after bikes and walking. The freeway system makes getting most places faster via a POV. Heck, even Greyhound is faster for a lot of trips.
2) Not very cost effective. Priced close to an airline ticket. (That may have changed over the last few years.)

Commuter Train:
1) Inconvenient - Stuck to a strict schedule. Not all stations are close to destination. Not well kept (interior) and can be overcrowded.
2) Most people prefer the "freedom" of their POV.

I use the TriRail here in SE Florida. Less than 2 miles from the house, 45 minute ride north, then a 12 mile drive to work. But it beats driving the I-95 everyday! I drive to work Monday morning then use that vehicle to commute to the north stop and work the rest of the week, then drive home Friday evening. My wife drops me off, picks me up on the home side of the journey. And I save 2 or 3 tanks of gas each month. At $75 per fill-up, that gets expensive fast.

I would ride the faster BrightLine (just bought by Virgin Trains) but the north stop is 5 blocks east of the TriRail while the closest south end stop to us is 15 miles *south*. And it is 5 times the cost of a monthly TriRail pass.

Once wormhole tech is invented then I can see the train becoming the main way to travel between cities and countries, and eventually worlds. (Read Pandora's Star)

Jack several reasons; 1) Americans are afraid of fast trains, we have all seen the movies of Godzilla eating the fast trains and believe why should we just invite him here 2) As fast as they move they would never be able to run from their car to the car that has the bathroom in it because it is too fast, and they would have an embarrassing accident, 3) Everyone knows all the good things that happen on a train happen on an older American train, that is science. If you watch any of the movies all the romances are American, all the monsters are Japanese. I should get a doctorate in this cause this science.

Dwight D. Eisenhower put money into the interstate system that might have been better spent on a solid railway system.