Both inter- and intra-city passenger rail have taken a HUGE hits in the past ~100 years or so. You look at rail maps from the ~20's and they were like spiderwebs, connecting all kinds of small communities in the Midwest to major hubs like Chicago and Detroit.

Those have been gutted. I've used Amtrak, and it's good in some limited areas, but it's forced to compromise based on poor funding and freight rail priority, etc.

Most suburban areas of America, and many major cities, have incredibly poor public transit and passenger rail systems. Cities of comparable size in Europe or Asia would consider public transit to be a must, but there are plenty of 500k+ population cities that barely have a "shell" of public transit.