No, the eastern time zone and a chunk of the central time zone of the US have roughly similar area to Western Europe, and the population is close enough (similar numbers of very large cities). Once again: just because Wyoming exists doesn't mean many of us ever drive there, even once.

I also road trains in Germany in the mid 80's, I was stationed there while in the Army, and the trains were frequently late due to breakdowns, congested rails lines, etc. The same trip by car via the autobahn would have been less than half the time as trains have regularly scheduled stops along the route and on the autobahn the choice to stop was mine. Europe has a better managed rail systems than America, but I would hardly call it an improvement over the US highway system.

One note, the US east of the Mississippi has a whole lot fewer people than the population of Europe you just laid over it. Maybe that's why you want to believe the population density is unimportant. Of course, I suppose it would also be unfair to note the relative difference in the standard of living between the US and Europe as well. Stupid reality.

Overlay a map of Western Europe on the US, and you can cover essentially all of the US east of the Mississippi and a bit of the rest.

(The same argument is also frequently used against intracity rail transit, ignoring the fact that even though we all know we COULD drive to Wyoming, most of us never do; so including it in our supposedly so-low population density is kind of misleading in this context).

Unlike Europe, most passenger rail service in the US operate on tracks owned by freight rail companies. The only dedicated passenger rail lines I know of is in the NE Corridor between Washington DC and Boston. The freight rail tracks are in such poor condition from the weight of the freight cars that often the maximum speed of the trains cannot exceed 40-50 mph in many places. On top of that, the freight companies control the tracks, and the passenger trains have lower priority than freight trains.

A couple of years ago, I took my family to Florida from DC on the Auto-Train. There was an accident in SC that caused us to detour through the western part of SC, and the train was 18 HOURS late getting into Orlando. We were stalled outside of Jacksonville stacked behind two or three freight trains. This is symptomatic of the state of American rail. Unless you're a rail buff, you'd best stay off Amtrak (except in the Northeast) if you want to get anywhere in a decent amount of time.

Wow it takes 8 hours to get from St louis to chicago by train ?

That's what 250 miles ?

Hmm amtraks suggests that'll take 5 and a bit hours so add on getting to the station etc , yeah i can see 8 hours.

But 5 and a half hours for a 250 mile journey ?

Even in the UK, that sort of distance should be around 2 and a half hours on a direct line.

Time is money. Business travel is substantially different than leisure travel. Which is one of the reasons I drive to Chicago (4.5 hours) on business rather than fly (4.5 hours with TSA et al built in) or take the train (8 hours and then I still need a car or a cab to get around).

Any fetishism towards a condemnation of the US for its lack of a European style public transportation system usually seems to indicate either a "damn the freedom the proles want because I know what's better for them" attitude or a lack of actual experience with European public transportation vis-a-vis American business travel.

Choosing driving over flying yielded three significant benefits. First, because of my itinerary, driving was substantially cheaper. getting a rental car for a week cost me $150. With gas and extras it was still under $300. Trying to get three non-round trip flights on short notice was close to $2,000. Second, I was able to travel with more luggage that was always more readily accesible and less difficult to transport. Third, and perhaps most important, I was on my own schedule. I was not beholden to the airlines, airline delays, TSA, traffic snarls, rental car checkins and shuttle buses, or anything else. An extra side benefit to this was that I did not have to eat airline or airport food at any time.

All in all, unless I have to travel to either coast or overseas (I live in St. Louis now), I no longer fly.

And in Europe, there would be. You could overlay a map of Western Europe alone, and it pretty much matches where most Americans live, if we omit California. The distance most of us travel on most trips is, in fact, within the boundaries of good interurban rail. DC to Atlanta is a real good example - were we not excessively subsidizing highways, it would make extremely good business sense for a Euro-style train.