Part of it was that Willie’s love for trains included gooberment mass transit.
I love trains too, but by the end of his time here Willie had notched the old subsidy throttle into "Run 8." His posts became sort of like the condensed versions of rail industry magazine editorials wherein Uncle Sugar needs to extract more taxpayer tribute to balance out the highway and airline largesse.
Amtrak is fine if you can tolerate all sorts of possible annoyances and don't care how/when you finally arrive. Airline travel has become so distasteful to me that I would welcome a competent railroad alternative, but Amtrak ain't it, aside from a narrow commuter bailiwick.
Mr. niteowl77