In FY24, Amtrak achieved the following key results:

• Ridership: 32.8 million customer trips, a 15% increase over FY23
• Ticket Revenue: 2.5 billion USD, marking a 9% increase year-over-year and the highest in Amtrak’s history
• Total Operating Revenue: 3.6 billion USD, a 7% rise from FY23
• Adjusted Operating Earnings: A 9% improvement to -705.2 million USD
• Service Expansion: One new train service was launched, with four additional routes expanded

How adorable.

Just the high-speed trains here carry just under 3 billion passengers per year. Divide it by respective populations (land area is roughly equivalent) and you’ve got the equivalent of the USA carrying 735 million passengers annually.

And that’s just high-speed trains.

If you factor in regular rail we can add about 730 million extra passengers (183 million extra passengers for US population adjustment).

The USA has a whole lot of work to do before it catches up even on regular rail, not to mention high-speed.