alt Hacker News > "I think that though we are a railway company, we consider ourselves a city-shaping company. In Europe for instance, railway companies simply connect cities through their terminals. That is a pretty normal way of operating in this industry, whereas what we do is completely different: we create cities and then, as a utility facility, we add the stations and the railways to connect them one with another."
Because the railway companies also participate in the economic activity at the destinations, they extract extended value from enabling mobility. Imagine if the rail operators owned a percentage of a stadium or convention center, for example. This then creates the economic incentive to build more connections to this "hub".
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> Certainly, part of it is also cultural and legal frameworks that in the US make it very hard for this model to work
How so? In the United States Congress granted land to railroad companies, and the companies can sell the land to finance building tracks. Many cities started as railroad stops and grew because of the railroad.
I sometimes see the US referred to as a "post-rail" society, meaning that it has outgrown the need for rail for the more intimate, personal transportation methods we see today. I submit that, like other HN commenters say, the US doesn't need rail due to this society. How will US citizens help their friends move or do their large (in terms of volume) Costco grocery shopping without large trucks and only using rail?
Kyoto station is a great example of this. It's enormous inside, with a hotel on the top, event facilities, and a ton of retail all over.
https://www.kyotostation.com/kyoto-station-building-faciliti...