As far as breaking up the company or whatever, I don't strongly disagree there. That is, I think the present configuration for amtrak is one of the worst possible, caught between public and private realms. On the one hand it gets free money earmarked for stupid stuff, on the other it is punished and berated when the public's tab is figured. You've engaged in some of that berating; you'd do better to focus on the senators that meddle in amtrak business rather than the performance of the hobbled "company." But until the public/private system is reorganized (and I think that is inevitable), funding like this that supports practical intercity development is the best thing we can do. If I had my wish it would be a well-funded fully public system (because it works beautifully in France and I'm tired of the failed contrarian experiments here) but if the only choice were the Amtrak status quo or something more independent/competitive (less in this prublic phantom zone) I would support it. Change, please!

How can you justify a subsidy of $210.31 per passenger 1,000 miles for Amtrak passengers?

How can you justify playing such obvious number games?

Inter-city bus is far more efficient. (Not to mention, inter- city bus serves more towns than rail.)

Eventually the subsidies to car travel will be abandoned, and then passenger train and bus service will begin to see a reasonable rate of return. But that will be a bonus, not the reason for providing passenger train service. Some routes will never be "profitable," but deserve to be provided out of basic human decency.

Jeff, if you're still willing to regurgitate your simplistic free-market ideas, please apply them to Essential Air Service.

Your data supports my logic. If Amtrak was run like a business, the Northeast Corridor route wouldn't be effected and the NY Businessman would probably get even better service. Because these routes are profitable. If Amtrak was run like a business the route that the government is currently having to pay $100 or $200 per person traveling on them would be shutdown.

Hi Ivan,

I understand that $1.5bil is a small amount. But why pay any amount to support routes that aren't being used. Just like Doc points out - the Northeast corridor routes are profitable. They should remain and even be expanded. The route that aren't profitable and never will be profitable shouldn't be kept running to get a congressmans vote or for sentinmental reasons. Wouldn't it be better to offer better service to groups that would actually use the service - and this is what a good businessman running Amtrak would do.

You don't. That would be their only profitable route? This is the one puny factoid that everyone with an opinion on Amtrak is supposed to know, that the northeast corridor is more or less profitable depending on year to year rail infrastructure costs.
http://www.slate.com/?id=2067412

In any case it doesn't hit this $60 per passenger average that you haven't bothered to cite, which is a sadly limited way to frame the issue. It's just plain wrong to apply a systemwide average to individual routes, and especially nonsensical for their outlier "good" route. Leave businessmen alone!

As I have already pointed out, Amtrak is small beans because it recieves a small beans subsidy. If passenger rail was subsidized to the same degree as passenger autos, I guarantee you the situation would be different.

Legislated service requirements are a serious burden to Amtrak and should be scrapped immediately. They are just one more way in which the federal government transfers money from populous states to rural ones.

Getting rid of the amtrak subsidy altogether is a great idea. But to be fair (to the environment and to passengers) it should be eliminated simultaneously to all other transportation subsidies.

Amtrak is not the solution. It is a policial beast. If it wasn't a pysdo-government operation and a real company, they would shutdown the ineffective routes and keep the profitable routes and still accomplish 90% of what people want. Without needing $1.5bil from the US government.

Right or wrong - Airports and automobiles are helping the majority of americans. While Amtrak is help a very small portion. If the eastcoast or westcoast routes are so valuable and so useful - KEEP THEM/SELL THEM. Just don't expect me to pay $60 for everytime a New York Businessman wants to travel from NY to Washington.

I agree. There's no reason the government should be intervening in transportation, especially intercity transportation, to the degree that it does.

The thing to understand, however, is that every mode of transport in the US is subsidized: Automobiles, airlines, regional public transit, Greyhound, Amtrak, and even bicycles and pedestrians are subsidized by the federal government in one form or another. The lion's share of this intervention, however, goes to the airlines and to drivers. Airlines get tax breaks and direct payments while autos are subsidized mostly through free infrastructure, notably the US highway system.

In this context, it is totally reasonable for Amtrak and its supporters to ask for greater subsidy. Passenger rail is the most environmentally sound form of long-distance transport in this country, and for shorter distances is also the most pleasant. The main reason it's not also the most economical is not that rail is somehow an innately more expensive choice but rather that auto and air transport get huge subsidies while Amtrak gets stuck with minimum service requirements on unprofitable lines.

So in the final analysis, we agree: The government in general and the federal government in particular should not be subsidising or intervening in transportation. But the intervention is there, and it's not going away. Given that, rail should get at least its fair share.

For the life of me I can't understand why this isn't a red state issue. With the airlines clearly on life support, the options are greyhound or private car.

Second, I'd recommend all those interested in preserving and improving Amtrak not only write/email/phone their respective Congressional members but also to look at--if not join--passenger rail organizations like New York's own ESPA (Empire State Passenger Assoc.), NARP, even the mid-western Midwest High Speed Rail Assoc.(www.midwesthsr.org). All of these organizations are doing their best to keep the public up to date on passenger rail but anybody who must get from point A to point B, several hundred miles away, has to be better informed. Those of us who ride Amtrak as much as possible value its service, disrupted as it can be by the freight lines, don't want to see the nation lose a valuable resource.

Having ridden ALL of Amtrak's lines, north, south, east, west, I am not an uninformed participant in the debate about what to do about Amtrak.