by waitn4atrain
Ok, here's an idea. As I understand history, most charters awarded to people who wanted to build railroads had a clause in them that the recipient, in exchange for HUGE land grants, agreed to operate passenger trains. (This is why the privates had to petition to drop passenger trains and could not do so at will, yes?) The builders of the great rail network needed help to do so, and the government stepped in with a carrot. "You can have this IF you do this.." Maybe this could work again. So much is being said about the Class I's being financially unable to improve their physical plant. They are in desperate need of capital to increase capacity. Soooo...let's have some federal help for the freights to improve their position, but include a mandate that the freights must either provide at least some rudimentary passenger service, or contribute a portion of their increased profitability so someone else can. "We'll help you improve your standing IF you agree to use some of your enourmous plant for a public service. Seems a nice (naive?) balance between capitalism and socialism to me. Whatay'all think?