i hear stories about people hitchhiking in the 60s and 70s, maybe even a bit of the 80s but without a car you aren't getting to most places in this big wide wonderland. It is kind of a shame actually that USA doesn't use its rail system more than it does but you are not wrong. I once looked at a train ticket from Chicago to NYC and it was going to take more than 24 hours and cost about double what a plane ticket costs for the same destination. Who the hell is going to do that?