My grandfather loves trains and some of my fondest memories from when I was young was taking the train with him from Portland, Oregon down to San Francisco. Going to school in Williamsburg, Virginia, I often took the train up to Washington, D.C. or Philadelphia to visit family. I knew that the U.S. is lagging behind many other countries when it comes to our transit rail system but I was curious what that actually looked like. This map is a simple map comparing the total rail lines in the country with those used for passenger trains. There are large parts of the country that are either completely inaccessible, or wildly inconvenient to travel to by rail. It is such a shame since traveling by rail is one of my favorite forms of transport.