Trains can work great for either passengers or freight. The problems arise when you try to do both at the same time (on the same line). If the US was to dramatically improve its passenger service it would have to either build an entirely new set of parallel tracks (which would be very expensive) or dramatically worsen its rail freight offering, which would greatly increase the number of trucks of the road.
There's a train line close to me which runs on tracks parallel to a freight line.
The company maintaining the latter was asked several times if their infrastructure could be used, but they refused each time, so the passenger line, which was always there, just in a state of disrepair, had to be refurbished at great expense.
I'm happy with the result though because like in every track having just one line, the trains are amazingly punctual.
And if you’re going to pick one, there are plenty of reasons to pick freight. A single freight train might have 70-200 cars, each of which can carry 1-2 full-size intermodal containers (if not a comparably massive tanker car or something). Trains are more efficient than road vehicles in terms of energy consumption, wear and tear on the road (or railroad), and labor cost, but these efficiencies scale up considerably based on vehicle weight, and the weight of a few hundred loaded intermodal containers is a very high number indeed. Not to mention that intermodal containers are a lot less fussy about hospitality than passengers!
Germany (and probably some other European countries) have the problem of using the train network for freight at night and passengers by day. Together with underinvestment this has generated great problems but because infrastructure has been failing. It has been more politically opportune to invest in shared road infrastructure. Creating a healthy 'market' for infrastructure is extremely difficult.
Do you have a source for that claim? Preferably a study that shows that the USA uses fewer trucks and more trains for the transport of goods than Europe.
"Within the U.S. railroads carry 39.9% of freight by ton-mile, followed by trucks (33.4%)...Railways carried 17.1% of EU freight in terms of tonne-km, compared to road transport (76.4%)"
