Just stumbled upon this CNBC video on YouTube... This video contains some interesting facts and history.
It's simple, the freight companies came about first and then started passenger trains to advertise for their railroad as well as make some extra cash off of people and mail contracts. Following the creation of Amtrak in 1971, most RRs handed off their intercity and long distance trains to Amtrak in exchange for trackage rights so Amtrak could run on their rails.
If you want to get a better idea of consists on modern US railroads take a look at the webcam at Rochelle, Il railroad park. UP and BNSF cross on double track diamonds. Not as much traffic as 10 years ago but still very busy. 6 hour time difference so at this time of year still dark at 13.00 uk time Mainly East bounds for Chicago in the mornings and West bounds in the afternoons. Twice a week there is a BNSF local ( used to be GP38-2s, currently 2 fresh painted SD60Ms) appear about 16.25 UK time. Https://www.trains.com/trn/videos-photos/webcam/bnsf-and-union-Pacific-in-Rochelle-il/ There are some long waits on occasions but go to full screen and turn on the sound that way you hear before you see. There is also an in screen picture facility so you can play and still watch.
Postwar lobbying (=bribery) of politicians by airlines, private car manufacturers and oil corporations against public transportation projects wrecked the prospects of passenger rail in the US, against the interests of the public. On the other hand, the domestic capitalists knew very well how maintaining freight rail infrastructure would benefit them. Hence the contrast between the two today. Basically a microcosm illustration of profit motives bending public policy in the Land of the Free Until it Comes to Subjecting the People to Corporate Power.
I suggest you give it a good 10 minutes to consider how a response to a deeply and inherently political question of what historical and current processes have prevented the public transit system in country X from functioning like a majority of the population in that country needs it to, could possibly be non-political. The entire video linked in the OP itself carries political questions on this, even if it doesn't tackle them hard enough. If you don't like admitting to yourself that rail and public transportation are not just a random hobby but a field of public politics, you can at least refrain from coming up with hostile responses that speak more about an inability to deal with the subject in question than anything else. Just as a note on something that seems to have been missed - political discussions have been part of this forum just fine: https://forums.dovetailgames.com/threads/should-uk-railways-be-renationalised.36931/ without much complaint about them. Grownups can discuss anything - including politics - in ways that make sure there is no harm done, while running away from topics and telling others to do the same speaks for itself. For those who prefer actually understanding issues instead of sticking their heads in sand and going "I don't want to hear about politics in my inherently political hobby", here is some stuff that deals with how much of this process in the US has been political (which shouldn't be surprising really - after all, the term "politics" itself comes from the Greek polis, which referred to the original city-states and their affairs, and public transportation is one of the core questions of modern city management): https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/aug/26/koch-activists-phoenix-ban-light-rail https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers-public-transit.html https://www.sfgate.com/opinion/openforum/article/The-great-high-speed-rail-lie-2336677.php https://texassignal.com/op-ed-texas-republicans-need-to-stop-sabotaging-high-speed-rail/ https://www.vox.com/2015/5/14/8605917/highways-interstate-cities-history
