[SIGSEGV]

Originally Posted by electricron

There are no countries in the world with more tracks than the USA.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...t_network_size
1 United States 149,407 2,025 1.36%
2 China 146,300 100,000 68.35%
3 Russia 85,600 43,800 51.17%
4 India 68,000 45,881 71%
5 Canada 64,000 129 0.20%
6 Germany 40,625 22,500 55.38%
7 Argentina 36,966 190 0.51%
8 Australia 33,168 3,393 10.23%
9 Brazil 29,817 9,025 30.27%
10 France 29,273 15,687 53.59%
11 Japan 27,311 20,534 75.19%
12 Mexico 23,389 27 0.12%
13 South Africa 22,387 10,413 46.51%
14 Ukraine 20,952 9,801 46.78%
15 Poland 19,209 11,874 61.81%
16 Iran 16,998 2,200 12.94%
17 Italy 16,788 13,106 78.07%
18 Spain 16,355 11,127 68.03%
19 United Kingdom 16,320 5,357 32.82%
20 Kazakhstan 15,530 4,200 27.04%
21 Sweden 14,180 11,939 84.20%
22 Turkey 12,740 5,467 42.91%
23 Myanmar 11,025 0 0%
24 Romania 10,774 3,292 30.56%

All remaining countries have less than 10,000 kilometers of track.
There are countries with significantly higher percentages than the USA with electrified tracks, and there are some with lower percentages than the USA on this list.

I think the main reason why can be solved by who owns the railroad corridors.

Calculating for the EU from that list I get over 200,000 km of railroad track, 56% of which is electrified... so the US and Canada are far behind all other developed economic regions in electrification. Only developing countries and Mexico/Argentina are similarly low (and Ireland, if considered separately from the EU, but obviously railroads are of limited importance for Ireland).

Other than commuter rail systems (where extra accleleration and fewer fumes in central stations are big advantages), it's amazing to me that the lines over e.g. Donner Pass are not electrified, which would probably greatly increase capacity.