Trains still exist? And people still ride in them?
Yes. And they could be part of our future as well. Just ask Elon Musk. In fact, on that subject, he's a Musk ask!
As for the present, anecdotally, I know at least two folks who've embarked on long train rides this past year. One, the brother of a friend, we met up with in Grand Junction, AR (from the east coast) after we'd been in Sedona, for road travels throughout Arizona, Colorado and Utah and such. He chose the train because he's a staunch conservationist and doing so had a smaller carbon footprint than traveling by car or jet would have had.
The other friend traveled across Canada on the Trans Canadian Railway for the breath-taking scenery. Both enjoyed train cars with observation decks, and allowed as how their fellow passengers weren't weird, annoying, scary or boring at all!
Trains! A different experience than the existential dismay (and possible communicative diseases) of a Greyhound bus!
You sure don't save money though. The fares are most definitely not cheap.
But back on topic. Though incidents like these are tragic and distressing, it does seem like train travel is statistically safer than automobile travel:
But statistically speaking, trains are actually a very safe way to travel -- much safer than driving.
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