"Youth wants to know" question

What is the largest city/town (population) in the contiguous 48 that has no rail service? (That is, no active tracks).

Phoenix, AZ

Phoenix does have freight service though, doesn’t it? BNSF and UP?

I think that he was thinking of Amtrak service. I guess that it depends on what kind of city you are thinking of. In other words would a large suburb count? If not then you have to look at cities like Naples, FL or Annapolis, MD. A good possiblity is a Sun Belt city grown large with retirees, or tourists but little or no industry. Naples fits this, or if CSX has pulled back from St. Petersburg. Or a gambling city Carson City, NV or Laughlin perhaps. Marin County in California perhaps.

Annapolis, MD used to have Rail service.

Here is one of there locomotive’s at the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad museum in Baltimore,MD.

Carson City,NV. is the only state capital in the contiguous 48 that has NO rail service.

Virginia and Truckee?

Trukee, CA has Union Pacific tracks that encounter around 17 trains/24 hours.

No the Virginia and Truckee RR.

Yea I was thinking of Amtrak, Sorry everyone.

In Canada, two provincial capitals have no rail service - Charlottetown, PEI and Saint John’s, Nfld, as both provinces are without railroads.
Regina, Sask and Calgary, Alta do not have passenger service, although Calgary has land cruise trains.
Is Calgary the only North American city that has streetcars but no passenger trains?

Are there trains to San Francisco?

Wisconsin’s capitol, Madison is not served by Amtrak rail. The train stops at Portage, about 30 miles from Madison, and there is a connecting bus.

The V&T doesn’t go to Carson City, but that will be changeing in the future with the rebuilding of the Virgina City-Carson City tracks.

Though not technicaly Amtrak, Caltrains runs Gilroy,San Jose- San Francisco and I believe Amtrak is the contract operator of that commuter service.

Hello, people…aside from passenger and subway trains, New York City proper has no actual rail service into it. At least no direct freight service.

Albany, New York proper has no Amtrak service, you have to cross the hudson into Renselaer. As for New York City, there is indeed freight rail service into three of the five buroughs: The Bronx & Queens are served by CSX, CP, P & W and New York and Atlatic. Brooklyn is served by the New York Cross-Harbor RR and NY & A.

Naples has rail service by Seminole Gulf to the very northern edge, I believe, unless they don’t use it. On a related note, another large city up the line, Fort Myers, has no passenger service either. They do have a bus connection, though.

I meant New York island(Manhattan) proper. It is all on the outskirts. Shoulda pointed that out first time.

On a interesting note, NS is reactivating the portions of the Staten Island Railway for freight service making 4 out of 5.

There is also freight service (mostly at night) on those tracks.