As Europe Speeds By on Rail, America Is Stuck in Traffic

New York Times

18-05-2025

How civilized to catch a train, enjoy a meal on board and then go to bed in a cozy cabin while the moonlit world zips past.
Recently, I've boarded sleeper trains in Brussels and disembarked in Vienna; bid 'Gute Nacht' to Munich and 'buongiorno' to Venice. Closer to home, the Caledonian Sleeper shrinks the 400-mile journey between London and Edinburgh to just 40 winks — with supper, a nightcap and breakfast en route.
Such journeys are possible on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean, but the future and fate of night trains in Europe and the United States are set on very different tracks.
In 2025, Europe's sleeper train network has been enjoying a renaissance. Revitalized in the age of flygskam (the Swedish word for the feeling of climate guilt associated with the emissions from airline travel), the continent's expanding offering of nocturnal routes aims to compete with short-haul flights on speed, cost, comfort and climate impact. The European Union has plans to double high-speed rail traffic by 2030 and link all major cities in the bloc.
But as Europe embraces the night train, the United States seems to be sleepwalking into a transport dead end, slashing funding for public infrastructure and firing transit workers. Long-distance public transport in America may be heading inexorably toward a binary choice: fast, exclusive and environmentally ruinous or slow, tortuous and run-down.
America has long been in thrall to cars, of course. 'Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?' Jack Kerouac asked in 'On the Road.' In 2025 the answer seems to be home, or to the local airport.
In President Trump's second term, with many climate commitments and environmental protections already up in smoke, the road ahead seems clear: more gas-guzzling cars, planes and rockets. The national rail system is written off as either irreparably broken (like the long-suffering Amtrak) or a mismanaged white elephant (as with several stalled high-speed rail projects).
One reason for this is America's identity as a land of individual freedom, an idea embodied by the mid-20th-century automobile. It's clear that it hasn't served America well. In an April study, 'Does Car Dependence Make People Unsatisfied With Life?' researchers highlighted the correlation between high levels of car dependence and a crash in American drivers' happiness and mental health. Far from freewheeling dream machines, cars now can represent headaches and nightmares — a depressing necessity in a congested land with few alternatives.
Yet, rather than invest in ways to help people leave their cars at home, America's typical response to congestion has been to build more lanes and highways. In a nation where cars are king, it's no surprise that more freeways are often portrayed as the only way.
New and refurbished rail networks and subway systems would seem an obvious way forward, but rather than investing in such infrastructure, America often opts to spend millions, if not billions, reinventing the wheel with unproven moonshot projects, niche urban merry-go-rounds or bijou supersonic passenger jets. Elon Musk, America's anointed tech guru in chief, is on record enthusing about China's impressive bullet train network while disparaging America's railways as a national embarrassment. This is ironic coming from a man whose now shelved Hyperloop — a theoretical high-speed transportation system — beguiled and distracted a lot of potential investment from tried and tested transit systems across the United States.
The secrets to China's fantastically successful matrix of high-speed railways are clear: consistency of vision, courage of conviction, a successful nationwide rollout and, crucially, adequate funding.
The only transit system Mr. Musk has built successfully is a series of tunnels beneath Las Vegas through which his Tesla vehicles loop, much like an underground rail service, only, at present, much less efficiently. In both cases, capacity seems laughably limited — a couple of dozen passengers per Hyperloop capsule, sedans of five in rotation.
Then there is the current drive to revive supersonic passenger jets. Boom Supersonic, the U.S. company following in the Concorde's contrails, is hoping its 64-seat concept will take off by attempting to circumvent some of the sticking points that grounded its predecessor — namely demand, price, and regulation.
Such dreams are attractive for the few who can afford them, while leaving the vast majority in the dust. An exclusive, myopic mind-set prevails. Be it five or 64 seats, such limited capacity won't move America.
In the age of billionaires talking up ballistic futures beyond this planet, it's easy to dismiss old and underfunded technologies as systems begging to be superseded. The early railways also had their share of 19th-century tech-bro hype, but they were always built for mass transit.
Trains, synonymous with community, connection and shared purpose — the 'traveling coincidence' of Philip Larkin's poem 'The Whitsun Weddings' — allow for chance meetings and brief encounters with fellow travelers. (I should probably declare myself as someone who doesn't drive and enjoys meeting and talking to strangers.)
Once the glamorous go-to for travelers rich and poor, trains were a staple of 20th-century culture, woven into the worlds of Agatha Christie's Poirot, Ian Fleming's James Bond and the characters in Alfred Hitchcock films. In 'The 39 Steps,' 'The Lady Vanishes' and 'Strangers on a Train,' Mr. Hitchcock loved a train for its powerful collision of velocity, romance and intrigue, a defined cast of passengers but perils unknown.
But once the jet age got underway and travel habits changed, train thrillers ceded to the generally less-satisfying genre of airplane action movies. Meanwhile, American railroads went into a tailspin.
In Europe, trains are the old/new answer — old-world comfort married to new, faster rolling stock. The drive between London and Berlin, for example, is about 12 hours. The fastest trains get you there in just under nine hours. Contrast that with the 13-hour drive between New York and Chicago, a trip that takes roughly 20 hours by train.
Europeans have sleeper trains because we value the infrastructure, and we are the better for it. The prospect of that kind of commitment for 50 states so reliant on insular cars and planes would be a game changer. However big the United States might be, however divided about the future, revitalized railways offer an alternative way ahead. To streak across the country day or night, to see the nation pass and talk to your fellow citizens and strangers as you go: There's surely no better time for the rediscovery and rebuilding of that American dream.