The US moves more of its freight by rail than any other country in the world, and it’s not even close [1]. This just isn’t a very thoroughly researched article.
That doesn't really contradict what that person was saying. They just said that only Americans call trains old fashioned. That can be true at the same time as it's true that American industry makes heavy use of freight trains.
The lower ranking is total mileage tons while the highest ranking is percentage of freight moved by train.
The US ranks decently high in passenger miles as well, but that's just because we're a huge country, not because trains are regularly used by people in the US.
I guess I should have used a different word but I meant huge to imply a large population as well as area. The US is the 3rd most populous country in the world after all.
I know this is a reflexive "America bad" tic that some people just seem to have, but by whatever measure you use, the US is in the top 10 of rail freight:
Here's a metric: remove iron ore/coal shipments that only use a single fixed repeat route on a decaying network at <10MPH on un-electrified rail that hasn't been majorly maintained in 50 years.
If you remove that particular outlier (that basically drowns out everything else), the US's rail is pretty trash.
Or look at coverage; US rail companies will abandon profitable routes because they're fixated on improving the average profitability instead of absolute profits.
Nobody who knows much about railways is impressed by the US's railway system. Electrification is cheaper in the long run, and yet the US railway system is <1% electrified, because it's not profitable in the short term and all the railway companies are horrifically allergic to anything that won't be profitable within the decade. The US rail system is slowly falling apart, because while it makes sense in the long term to maintain it, it won't earn a profit now.
These comparisons between countries are always difficult.
Each place is adapted to the geography.
In Europe, the coal or ore may well be loaded onto a barge. The rivers here follow some useful routes, and the continent is surrounded by sea on three sides.
The USA doesn't have such convenient waterways.
Similarly, a container ship will make multiple stops around Europe, so there's less need to have a huge freight railway from Greece to the Netherlands.
I think most people, including journalists, don’t know or think much about trains. Or whatever they know it’s about passenger trains and they compare those with European ones.
