Planes, trains, and automobiles
Planes versus trains:
1) Before you board a plane as a passenger, you must go through a long, tedious, vaguely insulting process with the TSA. It's security theater which probably doesn't stop any terrorists. Nonetheless, you must get to the airport 90 to 120 minutes before the flight takes off, and that's mostly due to the potential for delays during security screening. After that, you're kept in a sort of security bubble, including the umbilicus from the airport to the plane itself... all to avoid letting suspicious people near the plane.
Before boarding a train, you must do none of this. You can walk into the train station 15 minutes before departure. This is a huge time savings.
Advantage: trains.
2) Boarding a plane is terribly inefficient. Being a narrow tube with a narrow one-person walkway and (usually) only one entrance at the front, you end up forced into a single line of people. The whole line stops when the guy or gal at the front reaches their row, and has to take a minute to squeeze their carry-on into the overhead bin.
When boarding a train, you walk out onto the tarmac and walk along the train until you reach your car. Each car has its own entrance, so they board in parallel. It takes hardly any time and you're not waiting in any lines. The aisles are also wider.
Advantage: trains.
3) Planes can't afford to be roomy. Once on board the plane, you're in cramped quarters for the entire flight. If you are hungry or thirsty, you wait for flight attendants to bring along a cart with food or drink, and for them to reach your row. These carts also block all foot traffic; there's a complicated dance that must take place if the aisle must be cleared for some other purpose. Food options are limited. They have to be selective.
Sitting on a train, the seats are relatively comfortable. Normal train seats are like premium class seats on a plane. They're wider than ordinary plane seats, and there's more leg room. If you want food, you get up and walk to an entire car specialized for serving you food. You can do this on your own schedule.
Advantage: trains.
4) Planes have likewise limited space for luggage. These days you can't check even one bag without paying extra, unless you've racked up sufficient frequent flyer miles to earn special treatment.
Trains don't care. They have tons of room. Trains beat the pants off of planes when it comes to carrying capacity, because they can add more cars. Trains that carry cargo instead of people may have more than a hundred cars, and thus can move massive amounts in one trip.
Advantage: trains.
5) Planes tilt this way and that. Planes encounter stomach-churning turbulence. Hence, the overhead bins must be shut, and the passengers must be strapped down when seated (and often are told not to stand up).
Trains shake and bump a little, and occasionally cover sections of track that are strategically tilted. But mostly, a train ride is pretty calm and level. There are no seat belts. There's an overhead luggage rack which is just a shelf with a small railing to keep bags from sliding off. You can stand up and sit down as you wish. Nobody cares whether your tray table is up or not.
Advantage: trains.
6) Seats on a plane tilt backward about 5 degrees. Some trains have sleeping cars. 'Nuff said.
Advantage: trains.
7) Airports tend to be bigger than train stations. You often have to walk greater distances to reach your gate.
Advantage: trains.
8) Airlines don't appear to be trying to improve these conditions. Rather, they're in a race to the bottom, in an effort to cut ticket prices. This is just economics and they can't really be blamed for market forces. But the result is that services, like checking a couple bags, that used to be included with the ticket price are now considered extras to be purchased. Buying a first-class ticket gets you a seat that's actually comfortable, service that's actually responsive, and the chance to board early so you aren't waiting around for everyone else. But you pay a _lot_ more for those privileges.
Trains aren't trying to pack more and more people into each car, so they aren't getting less pleasant to use over time. There is business class, but the standard fare is good enough for most people, and you don't hear a lot of folks complaining about their experience.
Advantage: trains.
9) Flying is intrinsically scary. You're stuck in a narrow metal tube which, despite being massive, somehow rises far above the ground, seemingly by magic. Once you're up there, it's hard to shake the feeling that you ought to be falling to your death. Add turbulence, and you feel like you _are_ falling to your death. You're effectively powerless until you land. Some people can't handle it. Others can deal with the elevation, but have problems with the air pressure changes. If you're halfway through a plane ride and absolutely want out, you'd better have a parachute.
Trains stay on the ground. Even when moving, well... you probably _could_ survive jumping from a moving train, if you did it properly. At any rate, it _feels_ like you could get out if you had to.
Advantage: trains.
10) Plane tickets tend to be more expensive.
Advantage: trains.
However, planes have two advantages that tend to win out over all the other considerations.
A) Trains are confined to tracks, and tracks must be built on land. They can't be built just anywhere, either. Assuming a reasonable route can be found, building a train track is a huge endeavor that takes a lot of money and a lot of time, and depends on being able to acquire rights to build on the land. Train tracks pass through cities and cross roads, creating safety risks to the local populace and disrupting car and foot traffic. Crossing water requires building a bridge. Train tracks must also be maintained.
Planes don't need a track. They are point-to-point. A plane with sufficient range can, in theory, leave from any airport and go directly to any other airport. This makes them way more flexible. By flying over everything, cities and mountains and oceans, they avoid all the entanglements underneath (assuming they don't crash).
B) Trains can go 75 MPH. Planes can go a lot faster. A flight I regularly take covers 2,600 miles in 5 1/2 hours, so that's an average of around 470 MPH. Despite the delays in boarding a plane, over larger distances you will almost always save time by taking a plane, even assuming there's a train track that goes the right direction.
So, train rides are unquestionably more pleasant experiences, but they can't compete with planes when it comes to the results that really matter to most people: the freedom to go wherever you want, and get there quickly.
Plane crashes are of course horrific events that frequently kill most or all the people on board. They are rare events, generally caused by human error, and over time the procedures and technology improve to make crashes less likely. All the same can be said of trains. I don't have the figures to show which mode of transport is more likely to kill you, but I'm sure the numbers are low enough not to bother about. Not compared to travel by car, anyway.
I have an electric car now. It's a Nissan Leaf. I've wanted an electric car for years, and I adore the one I have. I love how quiet it is. I love knowing that it expends no gasoline. (The electricity used to charge it might not come from clean sources... but in the Pacific Northwest this situation is improving.) I love that I can charge it effectively for free, in most situations, making it cheaper than buying the equivalent amount of gas. I also love that it's small, so I can fit it into tighter parking spaces. And I love that it's a lovely dark blue color.
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