Trains are slower now than in the 1920s

Consider, for example, the Burlington Zephyr… which barreled from Chicago to Denver in 1934 in a little more than 13 hours. (It would take more than 18 today.)

One reason is rail capacity. From the Civil War to World War I, the number of rail miles exploded from 35,000 to 216,000, hitting a zenith of 260,000 in 1930 and falling by 2000 to less than 100,000—the same level as in 1881. Capacity dropped because demand dropped—people moved to cars, and freight moved to trucks… "railroads asserted that, as an industry, they did not make a profit on passengers after [the] 1930s….

Amtrak is limited to a top speed of 79 mph because to go above that would require all kinds of upgrades to signals, gates, crossings, and ties, among other things…

As journalist Philip Longman has pointed out, where "fast mail trains" once "ensured next-day delivery on a letter mailed with a standard two-cent stamp in New York to points as far west as Chicago," today, "that same letter is likely to travel by air first to FedEx's Memphis hub, then be unloaded, sorted, and reloaded onto another plane, a process that demands far greater expenditures of money, carbon, fuel, and, in many instances, time than the one used eighty years ago."

More at the Slate link.