[sunnyam]

This mentality is why rail is always destined to fail in the US. That mentality didn't stop China, which has a comparable land area to the continental United States and allows it to benefit from highly efficient cargo operations all over the country.

But if you want to keep the France comparison, let's compare a journey from Paris to Marseille with a journey from San Francisco to Los Angeles:

Paris to Marseille: - by car: 7h30m (773km/480mi) - by train: 3h11m direct for 94 EUR/103 USD with luggage and WiFi, amongst others

San Francisco to Los Angeles: - by car: 6h (613km/381mi) - note that I'm checking the route times at 8:24 BST and so it's night time in the US - hence less traffic. - by train (and bus): 8h30m with a change for 61 EUR/67 USD

The SF to LA route covers less distance and requires a change, so the passenger would travel 6h by train and then a further 2h on a bus - and when you compare that to driving it doesn't make any sense to ever pick public transport.

I do think there's more to it than just Americans not liking rail travel or preferring their cars. To build significant passenger rail infrastructure requires coordination at state government levels with all the stakeholders; funding; purcahsing land; technology to build modern and efficient railways etc. I don't believe the US has the capability to just build rail anymore - it would require significant investment in skills and manufacturing to increase capability to the point where it will be able to build the type of modern railway they would need to actually be a viable alternative.

[CalRobert]

It's agonizingly slow (I used to take it to college in SLO) but between SF and LA you could take the Coast Starlight (you'd BART to Oakland first). It's 12 hours though. https://www.amtrak.com/coast-starlight-train . I used to take the Chinatown busses and they were faster, or ride share on Craigslist (or, really aging myself here - remember Zimride?)