That just isn’t true.
If you want a well researched and referenced argument. Here is a good one.
It takes far more people to build, maintain, and service airplanes and the infrastructure to support them than to do the same for trains, and even when traveling a train requires fewer personnel per passenger-kilometer.
If you’re moving the goalposts to include all the infrastructure of air travel, then you must also include the infrastructure costs of long haul rail travel. Building out new rail travel for hundreds of miles of long haul service (which is what I think OP is looking at, and what I specifically replied to) is monstrously expensive.
Airplanes and cars are massively subsidized
Can you point me at examples unsubsidized financially self sustaining (profitable) long haul rail anywhere in the world?
and their uncovered externalities are much more costly to society too.
We’ve to enough moving parts in this conversation. Lets table this one to include actual costs paid and ticket prices please.
cogman@lemmy.world 6 days ago
Yup. In basically all terms, rail is more efficient than airplanes.
The only thing that makes Amtrak less efficient in the US is the fact that it’s unused. And the reason it’s unused is because it’s an afterthought in government spending.