"I think that what a goodly chunk of our representatives dislike is Amtrak itself, not passenger rail service. I think that many in the house and senate make the distinction between the physical infrastructure and the corporation that operates the trains, and therefore are willing to spend money to improve passenger rail service, just not in the form of a direct subsidy to Amtrak. "
Not to totally disagree (or agree either), but most of our representataives don't have a clue about how transportation works or how Amtrak is supposed to function. They see government subsidies for roads and airlines as good, and government subsidies for railroad passengers as bad. They will spend billions annually on airline subsidies (because they fly?) while demanding party unity and punishing any legislator to dares to listen to his/her constituents who actually use intercity trains. They'll provide money so privately owned railroads can improve their bottom lines (and hence the politicans campaign funds), but are cheap beyond belief at improving (or building new) rail line passengers.
And "High Speed Rail" is the straw man that makes a mockery of the whole thing. Who acutally believes that the feds, while whining about a bilion annually for an entire national system will fund billions for high speed corridors which will still not improve mobility across the nation! HSR is more subsidy for private contractors, engineers, and planners. And while that money is being wasted, they do nothing to help in the here and now.
Much of the chatter about "rationalizing" Amtrak, or breaking it up to make it more efficient is simpley smoke to hide the dismemberment of the national system. Show me how removing one leg of a race horse makes it faster or more efficient. Show me how putting an athlete on a 50 calorie a day diet will make his/her performace better! Show me how depending on the freight railroads' good will has resulted in on time trains!
Here in California, the state has been a partner for over 30 years in improving Amtrak service. Amtrak in Califoria has made remarkable progress with more service, new equipment, new and rebuilt stations -- and many more passengers. But connecting out of state is no better than it was 20 years ago. (Worse if you want to go to Phoenix!)
Reducing Amtrak to corridors is no solution to moving people across this country. My own hope would be that making all long distance trains twice a day would more than double ridership (no town would have only midle of the night service). But it would require -- not a massive increase in Amtrak's budget-- but a realistic assessment of the total cost of government, and the miniscule part of it that Amtrak's budget is.
The current federal deficit in $500 billion dollars. If you eliminated Amtrak's budget ENTIRELY, it would take five centuries to pay off that deficit!
