Speaking from the New England perspective here, it was only about a hundred years ago that local trolleys and railways dotted the region. Where I lived in the 70's and 80's, Western Connecticut, there was once a street railway that ran all the way up half the state edge and into Pittsfield, Massachusetts. There was also an East-West railway running from Hartford across the top of the state until the 1950's, a North-South railway running along the western edge, and another North South railway across the line in New York, running up the eastern edge of that state until the 1970's. All but the North south line are gone, turned either back to pasture or into bikeways, and the North South has been freight only for about 50 years, except for scenic rides on a seasonal schedule. In addition, every town of any size had trolleys that went through the city and out to the suburbs, all done in by the 1950's and paved over.
Depending on your point of view, the time for rail travel ended, or the automotive culture, and (so I read) the clever act by General Motors of buying up old trolley lines and replacing them with buses, spelled a permanent end to mass rail transit here, or the government made a big mistake by subsidizing highways and letting rail travel wither. It will never be remotely practical now to regain the rights of way that railways gave away or allowed to lapse in past years.
