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Why do you think it would have been more preferable for NA society to be dependent on rail travel rather than being dependent on auto travel? We are a nation of individuals, and if you have to be dependent on something, it is better if that dependency is predicated on something that you can control individually rather than a dependency on something over which you have no individual control. That being said, why should we assume that the auto vs train debate is mutually exclusive of each other? I think it is possible that NA society could have evolved into a society that owns 2 cars per household and uses rail for medium to long distance travel. Look at the travel patterns between Alaska and the Lower 48. You can either drive the Alcan in your auto, or you can take the ferry out of the Puget Sound to an Alaskan port. I haven't studied the comparative usage lately, but I believe auto travel to and from Alaska is relatively split between the Alcan and the ferries. Now take that real world example and apply it to the nation's rail grid. Take a situation where you will need your car in a travel situation to some distant part of the continent. Since it is cheaper to use your own vehicle as opposed to renting a car, you are now looking at options for getting your vehicle from home to the travel destination, so air travel is out. As an individual auto driver, would you prefer to drive from say Seattle to Minneapolis via I-90 or use some kind of surface ferry aka AutoTrain to get your vehicle there? Assume the time differential between driving or taking the train is not a factor. Unless you like to drive through miles and miles of Plains, I believe most people would prefer the train travel to highway travel. What I am getting at is a parallel universe in which railroads developed AutoTrains back in the early 1900's in response to the onset of individual car ownership, rather than maintaining the "people and bags" only attitude of passenger travel, an attitude that prevails today in all modes but the waterway systems. It also assumes that railroads maintained the speed evolution rather than foregoing speed in deference to slow but steady tonnage. With that in mind, yeah, it is not inconceivable that railroads could have adapted to and prospered from the advent of the personal auto. It's just that they chose to ignore the personal auto carrying market, opting instead for the "passengers and their bags" or nothing attitude. I am actually suprised that the idea of the railroad auto ferry did not materialize.
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