Does North American even have rail travel in 2072? We barely have it now; any chance it made a comeback? I'd hate to give up on the idea of a train caper.

There are trains. The customs checkpoints are a major pain, especially if you're a UCAS Citizen trying to go from New York to Seattle.

i always imagined it as a subway network tbh. Im not from the US so i dont really know but if i had to guess, increase in population would mean either building up or building down and since i dont see any floating monorail lines in the book art im gonna guess subway. Plus, how else could i get some classic subway fight scenes?

The maglev tube train from Seattle to Portland in the Tir featured in our games. Run by the Resha [?] Corporation as I recall.

Subways are really good for relatively small distances. Going from New York to Seattle is over 2800 miles (4500+km). Overland rail is really the best option for that kind of distance.

So there will be in-city subways, overland normal rail and likely some maglev rail lines between major cities on the country for high speed rail travel. That's my expectation anyway.

Per RC, p. 29, all of the metroplexes are connected via the maglev system, a few smaller settlements are not.

Considering the Interstate Highway system is fractured now, I'd think the same would happen to rail.