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Comment by teddyh | Hacker News Reader

Recently, Technology Connections on YouTube had an interesting theory¹: Long-range trains will never be popular in the USA, since people there have so little vacation time. It’s not reasonable to blow a few days (in total) on just train travel if your entire vacation is a single week. Other places don’t have this problem, so trains are more popular.

1) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDV1R1j1n5I

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But on the other hand, many Americans have no trouble traveling by car for 5-6 hours without a second thought whereas for a West European, that's quite unusual, so I'm not sure that tracks.

That’s for shorter trips than a day-long train ride, though.

The sleeper cars on Amtrak long-distance routes sell out almost immediately - many months in advance.

There is a market, if only they could figure out how to serve it.

PS - if they added the ability to take your car along with you it would open up an even larger market.

They figured it out on the DC to Orlando route:

https://www.amtrak.com/auto-train

Yeah I'd never move to the US for that reason (and the cost of healthcare) alone. I want my holidays. Here I get more than 3 weeks. Money is second to enjoying my life. It's only a means to that end.

I was approached about a job in the US recently but I declined.

Honestly, very long-range trains (overnight) aren't particularly popular anywhere.

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