mondoman712

The freight railroads aren't good at what they do. It would be much easier to run passenger services (and improve their own operations) if they ran trains that actually fit within their own passing loops, but they desperately want to reduce the number of people they have to pay to run their trains. Both would also benefit from better maintained infrastructure with upgrades such as electrification and more double tracking, but the railroads don't want to spend any more money than absolutely necessary to keep their (mostly) running.

In North America.

For the EU the biggest issue is all of the national operators being insane in different ways that makes it harder and more expensive than it should be to cross borders by rail a lot of the time.

Use them where they make sense, they can still eliminate many flights.

Just because buses and trains don't make sense for trans continental journeys, doesn't mean they can't be used for shorter journeys. There's a bunch of areas in North America where is does make sense and could eliminate many flights.