Could N.American society have successfully evolved into heavy use of passenger rail?

[CrazyDiamond]

Could North American society have successfully evolved into heavy use of passenger rail, instead of a society dependant on the automobile.

When I say "successfull" I mean:

#1 People want to use the passenger/commuter RR service, versus using their car. (For a variety of reasons)

#2 The passenger RR is making a profit, and infrastructure is very well utilized.

#3 There is a good healthy amount of competition.

#4 The message in most cars commercials is "buy your first car", instead of "get the car that gives you a DVD player, and room for 8."

When I say "heavy use" I mean:
#1 The dependency on cars is greatly reduced. In my mind the average number of cars per household is considerably less than 1, versus the current 1.77.

#2 The number of multi-lanes on our expressways, tollways, etc, simply never grew to the numbers they are today. I.e. 3 instead of six, 2 instead of 4, etc.

#3 That brown thick sludge smog never forms in the sky over the cities, and that dense blue haze is much thinner.

#4 The streets are lined with trolley/rail that integrates with commuter/passenger rail.

So in other words, instead of the 20%RR / 80% automobile situation we are in today, with the right policy, and determination, could we have evolved North Amerca into a 80%RR / 20% automobile society. Imagine leaving your house in the suburbs, walking for a few minutes to a trolley stop, taking the trolley to a passenger RR station, catching a train that takes you almost all the way, and then catching another trolley that drop you off within a few minutes of walking to work. Instead of most houses having a paved driveway and space for 2 or 3 cars, we have a concrete path that leads to the sidewalk.

If society/govt preferred this over the automobile, could it have succeeded? Could it have been 'so good' that you would question your neighbor when he says he is going to buy a car...."why would you want to do that"?

This is a "what if", "might of" and a "could of" topic...so please dream a little before replying. [:)]

[oltmannd]

Sure, just distort the market enough in the pro-rail direction instead of the moderately pro-highway direction we had.

Don't allow much highway construction.
Tax the living daylights out of fuel and energy.

Development would have become more urban and rail oriented.

[tpatrick]

In a word, no.

We actually were a rail-dependent society and we evolved into the auto-centric nation that we are today. Around 1917 passenger trains served every little burg, city and metropolis. And mostly they lost money. You could ride from Oil City to Corry, in northwest Pa., for example. But PRR could never generate the volume of ridership to make money on that service. At that time there were few cars and no decent roads to compete. The same was true on routes between bigger cities. I doubt that Buffalo - Philadelphia service ever paid for itself. Or Cleveland - Pittsburgh. The B. R. & P. took great pride in its Buffalo-Pittsburgh trains, but I'll bet it never took great profit. Not even in the old days when there was no alternative.

I remember the late 40's before we had a car, my family traveled by train. We got up at 0-Dark thirty, took a cab to the station in Erie, caught the Pennsy to Corry and then the Erie to Salamanca, where Grandma lived. Then we had to walk across town to Grandma's house. The return trip started after dark in Salamanca and we got home in three to four hours.

In 1949 my dad made the same choice made by millions of others. He bought a car, a '49 Ford. There were no expressways at that time - not one mile of interstate. But still we could go to Grandma's house in half the time. And we didn't have to get up before the sun to do it. We could also go anywhere else we pleased. By our own schedule. Needless to say, we never again took the train. Today there is an expressway, I-86, which I take when I go to Erie to visit my mother. It is only a 45 minute trip, door to door. No train service could ever match that. Because it is fast and easy I go there often. In the old days, trips to Salamanca were special occasions not often done because it took too much effort to do it often.

It was pretty much the same for every family. I can't imagine any way it could have been otherwise in a free society.

[Anonymous]

Well said Tim, I doubt if there are many that would disagree with you on your entry. Truth be told the comming of the interstate highway system may have been just the ticket to free the rail companies from passenger service and permit them to make freight railroading a going enterprise. The strrange thing is that even one of the old so called robber barons James Hill had some less than nice things to say about passenger trains, Passenger trains are about as usefull as the male t__. The passenger trains were big, sleek, modern and fun to watch, and yes as boys growing up we loved them. But railroading is not a charity and passenger trains do not fit into the profit matrix of a modern business. As Mr. Bob used to say about the reality of his passenger trains going the way of the DoDo bird "it's a shame and a scandal, but the truth. "

[PBenham]

NO. Not without outrageous gasoline taxes, vehicle fees, and traffic headaches Europeans have to put up with.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by PBenham

NO. Not without outrageous gasoline taxes, vehicle fees, and traffic headaches Europeans have to put up with.

Sir: You will never be shot for lack of candor. PL

[Anonymous]

I noticed you went to length to define "successful" as well as "heavy use" but make no such effort to describe/define the concept of "evolved" as you have used it.

probably a good thing too, since the word doesn't even fit properly in this context, since we have, as a society/ "been there, done that"...and have since "evolved" even further, to airplanes and automobiles.

I take the very use of the expression "evolved" with a grain of salt when used as a metaphor in analyzing social policy, because of the connotations that anyone who subscribes to philosophy other than that offered, is somehow non-evolved, a knuckledragging neanderthal, etc. And I think we get enough if those histrionics every 4 years when the democrats lose another presidentual election.

Widespread passenger rail has alread had it's day in this country, and it's future is limited to hi density/ short-moderate distance niche applications

[Anonymous]

The question of "Could North American society...(?)" is moot. The fact is we allowed our rail infrastructure for both passenger and freight to shrivel to a fraction of what it once was.

The more proper question today is "What SHOULD we do to revive and redevelop our rail infrastructure to enable better passenger rail and expanded capacity to move more freight.?" We have a bill now before Congress... Senate Bill 1516... that can get that process started. It would finally fund Amtrak on a proper multi-year basis. But more importantly, it would establish a first-ever federal funding program that states could draw from to re-build rail infrastructure for both passenger and freight rail.

Unfortunately, we (as railfans) have a tendency to dwell on the past instead of advocating for a better future. We need to be letting our members of Congress know that we need to correct this huge imbalance in our transportation system that has left us with congested highways and airways.

[CrazyDiamond]

QUOTE: Originally posted by TheAntiGates

I noticed you went to length to define "successful" as well as "heavy use" but make no such effort to describe/define the concept of "evolved" as you have used it.

Yes I did....go read ALL of what I wrote.

QUOTE: Originally posted by TheAntiGates

I take the very use of the expression "evolved" with a grain of salt when used as a metaphor in analyzing social policy, because of the connotations that anyone who subscribes to philosophy other than that offered, is somehow non-evolved, a knuckledragging neanderthal, etc. And I think we get enough if those histrionics every 4 years when the democrats lose another presidentual election.

Go back and read what I wrote again. Never mind here it is: "Could North American society have successfully evolved into heavy use of passenger rail, instead of a society dependant on the automobile."

This suggests that the current path, the 'automobile era' is also a result of evolution over time, and is also successfull.

QUOTE: Originally posted by TheAntiGates


it's future is limited to hi density/ short-moderate distance niche applications

Then why is passenger rail immensly successful, in short, medium, and long haul routes in Europe, and many other parts of the world?

I also find it interesting, how all the responses so far failed to even mention all the problems caused by our heavy use of the automobile, and how heavy passenger rail use would alleviate some of these problem, and possibly could alleviate most or all of these problems. Yes maybe no?

[vsmith]

Seriously, No I doubt it.

This is not Europe, most cities in Europe are ancient, often going back 1500 to 2000 years and are primarily designed around walking. narrow streets, steep streets, steppes streets right up hillsides are common. Distance between cities was often based on how far one could walk in a day and roads were laughable until the late 18th and even early 19th century, when road building became more a prioity. These cities were already established when better roads and later RRs linked them. The advent of the Auto was actually discouraged by the tight narrow streets in most cities, as a result people learned to rely on the railroads to get from A to B and back again. RRs quickly became the best system of mass transportation for the limited geography of the European continent where as America has a far vaster geography where travel was measured in days not hours.

In the US, almost all cities built after the revolution were built either along the few road highways that existed, or along the rivers where keelboat or raft could move goods or by the early 19th century increasingly along routes (or proposed routes) of the new fangled railroads. As a result US cities have almost from the start been design around a much longer definition of reasonable distance. Also where euro cities were based on walking, almost all US cities were designed around the horse and wagon, which by the late 18th century was the automobile of its time, and the distance it could travel. US citizens for the most part its early history were already using a transit system that relied on horse and buggy to get from home to station and then taking the train for what were much longer distance trips between major urban centers, all this due to the more advanced approach to mass transit in the US where the faster system that provides the greater freedom has always been the goal. Trains had from almost the start been set up to move bulk traffic from center to center, passenger service has always been a public service supplemented by frieght revinue. Passenger trains for almost 50 years (1870-1920) offered people the ability to go places they only read about, often very far away. But when the automobile came about, its no surprise that by the 1920's Americans had embraced the new technology so whole heartedly, Most cities were already designed around wagons and buggies so the transition to cars was almost seamless. American soon loved their cars, as it represents the greatest form of personal freedom ever invented, at least until the rocket belt gets perfected!

All this to me tells me that everything changes. As airport and highway capacity reaches saturation grid lock, well see a return of rail, like in Europe where now US cities are so crammed together that the previously open highways have now ground to a crawl cannot rely on. Rail in the US is far from dead, but how it evolves is yet to be determined.

[TH&B]

Sure, once this place gets over crowded, wich will happen one day even in the desert.

It doesn't have to be the whole country that is over crowded, just in the regions that are. What is going to stop the USA from becoming over crowded one day?

[corwinda]

What if government had never gotten into the road building business? (ie all roads were private toll roads?)

[Anonymous]

HEY Crazy D, Last I looked the subject is not about Europe but us folks here in the USA. We do have our own way of doing things.

[CrazyDiamond]

QUOTE: Originally posted by piouslion

HEY Crazy D, Last I looked the subject is not about Europe but us folks here in the USA. We do have our own way of doing things.

Actually you are not totally correct.....I created the subject and it is about North Amercia which includes Canada and Mexico....not only the USA. [wow]

[CrazyDiamond]

QUOTE: Originally posted by vsmith

The advent of the Auto was actually discouraged by the tight narrow streets in most cities, as a result people learned to rely on the railroads to get from A to B and back again.

Are you suggesting that cars (in Europe at least) are wider than trains? [:D]

[stmtrolleyguy]

I'm not really going directly into why passenger rail doesn't work, but I think that a few of these ideas demonstrate what we need to do to bring people back to passenger rail.

I think that a large part of this has to do with the fact that the US is just so large. It would be impractical to have train service that ran from every city to every other city. I think that we could make long-distance train travel viable, although not quite as fast as European trains are. (electrification of the entire US would be way to big-to impractical, and it seems that electric power is the way to go for really fast service).

I suppose what we really need after we try and get Amtrak up and running better (on time would be nice to allow for proper connections) is to try and network more forms of transportation between the major train routes and the smaller cities. Let the trains handle the heavy corridors, with alternative systems of transportation porviding the connections.

For example, the bus takes you from your small hometown (whatever it may be-nothing against people who live in small towns) to the train station, where the train will take you on the long haul part of your journey. The bus schedule would be designed around that of the train. Maybe the future isn't even in busses and trains, and maybe we need a revival of the interurban trolley, or the re-introduction of a budd-car like vehicle (see Colorado Railcar-they've made what looks like a really good performer as a next-generation Budd car.) And to further rail development, let these small connecting systems move carload freight again. Trolley companies did it, hauling one or two freight cars will a small locomotive. With a national network, it would be easier for companies that need only a few carloads at a time. Revive the shortline as a system of transportation of people, goods, and freight from the small towns to the heavy railroad arteries.

As much as I like traveling by train, however, there are some large advantages to traveling by car. For one thing, you can take more with you. Unless I'm traveling alone, say on a trip to visit family, all I have is myself. But if i'm going on vacation, I can't take all the stuff I bring with me on the train as well. But I can leave it in my car, and drive. And sometimes driving takes a lot less time, too. As a society, or vacation time gets shorter and shorter, and we need as much as we can get to relax, and don't have the time to enjoy the journey. What if we could bring our cars with us? Look at the Auto Train. We could simply go wherever we wanted to the nearest train station, and then continue in our cars to our final destination.

[Anonymous]

To take it as a "parallel reality" for a second, rail *could* have married itself to the auto (and the airplane), but would have had to adapt itself to the new world (something that in many cases it wasn't allowed to do).

[oltmannd]

The key word in the question is "COULD."

Once technology made affordable automobiles possible, there was great public support for the gov't to build roads to drive them on. (this was actually a continuation of a push started by the bicyling craze a couple decades before) Up until that point, the US was generally divided into urban and rural, with small suburban populations being supported by commuter rail and interurban service.

Urban streets were paved and rural communities linked by a network of paved highways. Once the government road building got seriously underway, the migration to the suburbs took off. It's likely that this was viewed as a benign unintended consequence of road building.

Auto ownership and road building were viewed as part of modern progress at that time. They were part of an era that included electic lighting, telephone service, radio, motion pictures and art deco. Modernism was inherently "good".

We now know there are some not -so-benign consequences of becoming a auto-centric society - air polution, dependence on imported petroleum, environmental impact of suburban subdivision, etc. But, these notions were abusrd back then.

I suspect any attempt by the government to curtail road building and highway improvements would have been extremely unpopular and almost unthinkable. COULD they have done it? Sure. But, Iikely? No way!

Those of us that grew up in the 1960s remember when "modern" = "progress" = "good". There was no such thing as "environmental impact". There was never a thought about an oil shortage or energy crisis. Nobody worried about where storm sewer runnoff went. Living in a city was "undesirable". The suburbs were where everyone wanted to live. That all started to change in the 1970s (an rightly so, IMHO)

I imagine it's hard for anyone under the age of 35 to imagine that a time like that existed.

[Anonymous]

. Never mind here it is: "Could North American society have successfully evolved into heavy use of passenger rail, instead of a society dependant on the automobile."

This suggests that the current path, the 'automobile era' is also a result of evolution over time, and is also successfull.

I still do not think "evolved" is a legitimate concept to be used in making this comparison.

Your beef seems to be that we "evolved" beyond passenger rail to the auto and airplane so you seem to object to the facr that we didn't suffer from arrested development after achieving the mode of your preferance...(steel wheels on steel rails)

Sounds like embittered neanderthals lamenting about "why'd those mean ol Cro Magnon dudes have to come along and spoil our gig?" etc.
Rail failed to evolve because it's physical plant is too rigid to cope with changing demands

[tree68]

Oddly, rail may have in part been responsible for it's own demise. Before you say "we knew that..."

When cities were concentrated entities - think "everything in walking distance," it made sense to travel by rail. You arrived at or near city center, could get where you wanted easily, then head back to the nearby rail station for your return trip.

Many trolley/streetcar operators promoted the growth of "suburbs" whose residents would, in theory, use the streetcars to head for work, shopping, and play - downtown. In the process, however, they decentralized the cities, with "local" shopping and its attendent need for employees popping up in the new residential communities. That's why some suburbs don't really have a "downtown."

As individual transport (ie, cars) came into the forefront, people discovered they could travel to the different suburbs, as well as "downtown." The problem was that transit carried people on the spokes to a central hub, and not radially around the suburbs. Hence, transit didn't go were the people wanted to go, so they drove.

Business followed the population as well. That resulted in a situation where it was no longer convenient to take the train for a business trip, since there was going to be some driving involved as well. If the cost/time of driving was comparable to taking the train, that's what they did.

[2c]

[oltmannd]

Larry-

I'm gonna quibble a bit.

Those transit-induced suburbs were quite a bit different than the auto-sprawl of later years. Compare eastern Queens Co. NYC with Levittown as an example. Or, Northeast Philly with Cherry Hill NJ. Totally different population density. Most development along transit was what we'd call "mixed use" these days. With sprawl, the housing is "over here" and the giant shopping mall is "over there".

But, the key to all this is roads. If you don't build them, then there's not much driving that's going to occur. It's been determined that highway expansion induces traffic. 95% of all the vehicles moving on a highway are induced. That is, they are new trips, not trips moved from another route or mode.

If NY never built the Parkways or LIE, I'd bet quite a bit of LI is still in spuds!

[tree68]

QUOTE: Originally posted by oltmannd

Larry-
I'm gonna quibble a bit.

No question. The highway thing was, and still is, definitely a "build it and they will come." In all likelyhood, no transit system expansion has ever exploded in the manner that highway fueled expansions have.

It's a tack that I've never seen before, though, and I have to wonder if it didn't indeed have the effect I suggest, however limited.

[DSchmitt]

QUOTE: Originally posted by oltmannd

Larry-


But, the key to all this is roads. If you don't build them, then there's not much driving that's going to occur. It's been determined that highway expansion induces traffic. 95% of all the vehicles moving on a highway are induced. That is, they are new trips, not trips moved from another route or mode.

If NY never built the Parkways or LIE, I'd bet quite a bit of LI is still in spuds!

Not necessairly.

In California, the east side of the "Great Valley", San Joaquin Valley and Sacramento Valley, developed in the railroad era. In the 1970's part of the justification for building Interstate Highway 5 on the west side was to spur growth there. Growth to the east was to be discouraged by limiting improvements to Highway 99. Since then Highway 99 improvements have lagged behind the development. The result, while I- 5 is a very busy through route with spotty commercial deveopment (gas stations, motels and restaurants) at interchanges, there has been almost no development except at Sacramento and Stockton, where I-5 is in the 99 corridor. At Elk Grove, south of Sacramento, growth as just reached the east side of I-5, reaching out from Highway 99, in the last 5 years. The west side is still entirely open land. The 99 corridor is congested by primairly local traffic because of commercial and residential developement.

[oltmannd]

So, where "they built it" (I-5) they "didn't come", but where they DIDN'T build it (Hwy 99), they did come.

Why? What other factors were there that created growth along 99 but not I-5? If everything else was equal, then the only remaining explanation is that people are irrational.

[CrazyDiamond]

Some things to consider:

#1 The RRs did hot have the human populations we have today, to market their 'services' to. More people can mean more ridership and revenue.

#2 What if the public highways were not govt funded. What if all these wonderful roadways depended on private money?

# 3 Or, what if the govt spread the money around equally? If govt funded the passenger RRs as well would we not have a better more useable rail system today?

#4 Our communities grew because of the availability of the automobile and roadways. If #2, and/or #3 were the case, our communites would have stayed more urban which supports rail right?

#5 Look at all that money that society has spent on the automobile industry and the roadways. We are talking trillions upon trillions of dollars North America wide since the 40s. If just half of that went to the passenger/commuter rail services I betcha our p/c rail services today would be more like what they have in Europe.

#6 Comparing with today we did not have the 'service' companies we have today. It is conceivable that today we could have a variety of rail service companies....trolley, light rail, subway, etc to serve urban-to-urban commutes, light rail, tram, Budd, to serve suburban-to-urban, and suburban-to-suburban commutes, and then of course full blown passenger rail for the longer haul commutes. If there can be a variety of models to get food services, home maintence services, automobile services, air travel services, etc, etc, then surely if we put our minds to it, we can have a variety of rail services too.

As a side note, From what I have read passenger rail service in Canada was profitable untill the advent of the automobile and highways.

Something to think about.

[oltmannd]

I'll respond with my opinions:

#1. Certainly the market is larger. There are more NEC passengers now than ever in history. Penn Sta. NY and Union Sta Wash DC are capacity contrained right now. Some part of the US were the market was too small that lost passenger service on 5/1/71 are more viable today. Routes out of Atlanta are a good example. Metro Atlanta was less than 1M in 1971. It's closing in on 4M today.

#2. What if Eleanor Roosevelt could fly? Roads were public since before beginning of the republic. There were some "turnpikes", but road building was one of the 1st public works undertaken (National Road).

#3. Right now, Amtrak gets more subsidy per passenger mile than any other mode. I think what you're talking about is if there had been public investment in rail on a par with highway and air over the past 50 years or so. I think that we'd have more corridors with rail service and more cities with commuter rail and transit, but we'd still be auto-centric.

#4 Land development tends to follow transportation infrastructure development. So, if you build transit instead of roads, you get higher density development along the transit line. If you build highways and no transit, you get sprawl. If you build both, you will get sprawl and an underutilized transit system.

#5 Sure, but we'd have voted the guys that tried to do it out of office in a heartbeat. Remember that the American Dream in post WWII America was all about the suburbs and cars - drive ins, drive thrus, etc. Trains were "yesteday's news".

#6 You can't build successful transit to serve areas build up around highways. Too many O/D pairs. Population density is too low (partly because of all those parking lots and roads). You CAN build transit and then allow the land use to adapt to it. i.e. allow higher density/mixed use redevelopment along the routes.

A really good example of "if you build it, they will come" is Wash DC. Development and growth in the area has largley been along the Metro lines - Bethesda, Silver Spring, Crystal City, etc. Lots of new, higher density housing going up along the lines, too.

QUOTE: Originally posted by CrazyDiamond

Some things to consider:

#1 The RRs did hot have the human populations we have today, to market their 'services' to. More people can mean more ridership and revenue.

#2 What if the public highways were not govt funded. What if all these wonderful roadways depended on private money?

# 3 Or, what if the govt spread the money around equally? If govt funded the passenger RRs as well would we not have a better more useable rail system today?

#4 Our communities grew because of the availability of the automobile and roadways. If #2, and/or #3 were the case, our communites would have stayed more urban which supports rail right?

#5 Look at all that money that society has spent on the automobile industry and the roadways. We are talking trillions upon trillions of dollars North America wide since the 40s. If just half of that went to the passenger/commuter rail services I betcha our p/c rail services today would be more like what they have in Europe.

#6 Comparing with today we did not have the 'service' companies we have today. It is conceivable that today we could have a variety of rail service companies....trolley, light rail, subway, etc to serve urban-to-urban commutes, light rail, tram, Budd, to serve suburban-to-urban, and suburban-to-suburban commutes, and then of course full blown passenger rail for the longer haul commutes. If there can be a variety of models to get food services, home maintence services, automobile services, air travel services, etc, etc, then surely if we put our minds to it, we can have a variety of rail services too.

As a side note, From what I have read passenger rail service in Canada was profitable untill the advent of the automobile and highways.

Something to think about.

[andrechapelon]

QUOTE: Originally posted by oltmannd

So, where "they built it" (I-5) they "didn't come", but where they DIDN'T build it (Hwy 99), they did come.

Why? What other factors were there that created growth along 99 but not I-5? If everything else was equal, then the only remaining explanation is that people are irrational.

There were already population centers along 99 (Sacramento, Stockton, Fresno, Bakersfield, etc, as a result of SP building its line in the 1870's). People go where the jobs are. Short of building a city from scratch along I-5 south of, say, Los Banos, there's no reason for people to settle there. However, I-5 is heavily used as the primary route between the SF Bay Area and the L.A. Metro area. It's the fastest way to get from the Bay Area to So. Cal. However, where I-5 served an already substantial population base, growth has occurred, especially in So. Cal.

Highway 99 parallels the UP (ex-SP) tracks between Bakersfield and Sacramento. As for any other interstate, check out where the population centers existed prior to interstate. Albuquerque, on I-40, was already an established town and has grown mightily. However, between Albuquerque and Barstow, there hasn't been massive growth. Granted, there has been some, but not that much. Same thing applies between Albuquerque and Amarillo, Amarillo and OKC, etc.

On I-80 between Sacramento and Omaha, those towns that have grown substantially are those already have a substantial base on which to grow. Just building a highway (interstate or otherwise) through an unpopulated area won't cause growth. Try driving US. 50 between Carson City, NV, and the connection with I-15 in Utah. There's miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles. There's no there there.

Andre

[Anonymous]

We were once dependant on rail. We were a Nation that traveled on rail.

Airlines, Highways and other factors (psst... profits) Killed passenger service.

Sure we can run passenger trains on the NEC or in the DC subway and various other small-time commutes here and there but the dream of true Long Distance service coupled with Local service across the entire USA flickers dimly and sputters when blasted by the winds driven by people unwilling to get out of the personal car.

I see a great potential for "Born-again" passenger service nationwide at all levels. If the British and the Europeans (as well as China and Japan) can do it... why not us?

[Anonymous]

When considering this debate about heavy use it might be helpful to look at other industries and how the car is used.

Is air travel, from a business prespective, an example of heavy passenger useage? How many airlines have filed for brankruptcy?

How many car trips are of the "to the corner store and back" variety? Where commuter rail is in place is the ridership growing or decreasing?

If people paid the true cost of driving, including the current costs of getting oil to North America: the true environmental and health care costs of cars, then rail travel would be cost competitive.

[Anonymous]

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.