Why were any investments in passenger trains made post-1950?

[SouthernRailway]

In reading Classic Trains magazine, about the death of the passenger train, with losses skyrocketing after WWII:

Why did any railroad invest in inter-city passenger trains after the initial burst of investment after WWII? With losses soaring at least in the mid-1950s and air travel increasing dramatically, didn't all railroads see the writing on the wall? Why did UP, Burlington, Santa Fe, etc. buy new cars as late as the mid-to-late 1950s and early 1960s? I understand that individual trains may have seemed to perform OK, but the industry was clearly doomed. Airlines had no problem slashing service after 9/11, and they didn't face the technological and societal changes that doomed passenger trains.

If the ICC forced me as a railroad to keep a train running, I'd keep it running, but I wouldn't put a cent more than I had to in it.

Thoughts?

[kaitoku]

It may have been partly institutional inertia. Also, the Western railroads perhaps had reason to continue upgrading their trains, as they served the stable leisure market (the "cruise train" market that Amtrak caters to today) likely more than the shrinking business market predominant in the East. I think KCS ordered new coaches around 1965(?), they likely had a decent market for regional travel in their part of the nation where the poor (at the time) had less access to the personal automobile.

[Ocala Mike]

During that period (roughly 1950-1960), there was still competition among the railroads for rail freight business. The "institutional inertia" mentioned by the OP gave rise to a mindset that the "movers and shakers" of corporate America whose companies relied on shipping by rail would be sufficiently impressed by improvements in passenger rail travel (many of them still rode the rails), and this would be good public realtions in order to retain/capture their freight hauling business.

[mtuandrew]

Purely a hypothetical on my part, but even into the 1960s, airplanes didn't have such a total dominance of the long-distance intercity market. The US Post Office RPO contracts were still in force too, and no one knew what form the eventual government bailout would take. It turned out to be a bad bet by those railroads, but it didn't cost most of them as much as it could have. Some lines, like the Pennsylvania, didn't even have a choice - they had to turn to Federal support and try to make something of nothing.

[ExCon90]

During that period (roughly 1950-1960), there was still competition among the railroads for rail freight business. The "institutional inertia" mentioned by the OP gave rise to a mindset that the "movers and shakers" of corporate America whose companies relied on shipping by rail would be sufficiently impressed by improvements in passenger rail travel (many of them still rode the rails), and this would be good public realtions in order to retain/capture their freight hauling business.

The converse was even more true. If the traffic manager of a major manufacturer (and we still had some in those days) had a disagreeable experience on a passenger train he would not hesitate to take it out on the offending railroad by diverting some traffic to a competitor. I know of an instance in which a traffic manager deprived one railroad of an entire year of a particular traffic movement because of its inability to provide a bedroom suite from New York to Miami on December 23.