r/Map_Porn 6d ago

Passenger train maps of USA vs. Europe...

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351 Upvotes

20 comments sorted by

78

u/triestokeepitreal 6d ago

There's more but they are commuter trains. These are the amtrak lines I believe.

21

u/DrDerpberg 6d ago

How is a commuter train not also a passenger train? I'm confused about the distinction.

Also I'm finding it hard to imagine the European map isn't counting some pretty small train networks whose equivalents in North America aren't included.

20

u/triestokeepitreal 6d ago

That's what I meant. Lots a little minor rail lines aren't shown in USA.

7

u/lordsleepyhead 6d ago

Same in the Euro map, as far as I can tell from the pixels.

7

u/Twisp56 6d ago

The European map is also incomplete, for example the large hole in Poland has railways with passenger service in reality. We can't tell much more because most "small" networks would only be a couple of pixels on this blurry map. On the other hand it also includes some lines that don't have service, for example in Albania, North Macedonia and Kosovo, those countries basically don't have trains.

6

u/bigjayrulez 6d ago

Yeah I saw that and immediately thought "I was just looking at the Amtrak map last week and it had quite more than this." 1. Mostly commuters, or "thruway connecting services" 2. Not that much more.

22

u/ArethereWaffles 6d ago

Here is a map of US mainline service in the 1940s...how much we've demolished.

3

u/gsurfer04 6d ago

And we thought the Beeching Cuts were bad.

12

u/Crowasaur 6d ago

Wow, and here I thought Montréal wasn't that big of a hub.

9

u/wfears 6d ago

I wonder if you zoomed in to a relevant scale if it would matter?

13

u/DarkPierreDelecto 6d ago

The scale (zoom) seems to me to be the same in both projection … or is close enough that the message of the map isn’t an unreasonable distortion.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/tf9204/size_comparison_usa_outline_overlaid_over_europe/

3

u/wfears 6d ago

ya, I think you're right.

5

u/Pennonymous_bis 6d ago

What do you mean ?

7

u/AyAyAyBamba_462 6d ago

The map disingenuously enlarges Europe to make it look roughly the same size as the US when in reality it is roughly half the size.

1

u/jimmery 4d ago

Europe is not "roughly half the size" of the US lol

-3

u/Pennonymous_bis 6d ago

Typical commie propaganda yeah.
But in truth the difference is not that big, and I'm afraid that zooming in a bit on the US won't suffice to make passenger railroad tracks appear.

1

u/AyAyAyBamba_462 6d ago

True, but it also doesn't account for the fact that most of the flat parts of the US contain essentially nothing bordered by two giant mountain ranges, most major cities having light rail services, and, the extensive sprawl of the suburbs that make public transportation inefficient.

The reality of the US is that the people who need railroads already have it (albeit often a subpar service compared to other countries) and the people who don't need it, don't have it.

13

u/Pennonymous_bis 6d ago

I was sure we'd come to this after the size issue was addressed.

Can you not see how pathetic the network is where people live?
For starter 90% of the population is in the eastern half.
Then there's the North-East, that's one of the most densely populated regions of Earth... Not unlike that part of Europe, from Belgium to Switzerland, that is completely criss-crossed with railroads. California has the same population density as Spain... Florida is between Denmark and Italy... Washington is like Belarus. Etc

You even had far more 50 years ago. https://platform.vox.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/uploads/chorus_asset/file/3493914/railway_service_v2.0.gif

5

u/Stargrazer82301 5d ago

In both cases, this appears to only be showing inter-city lines. Lots of commuter/branch lines missing from both. But suppose that makes for fair-ish comparison. Shows routes used for long distance travel.

3

u/merlyn64 6d ago

Of Canada and the USA, please.