Only because of bookkeeping accounting tricks like spreading the employee long-term benefits and track maintenance over the entire network. Amtrak counts only the direct daily cost against its ticket revenue for each line. It peanut-butters the balance across the entire network.
That's why every ticket sold by Amtrak LOSES $30+. And Amtrak's "profit" for that line (they claim about $40 per rider), at 8000 riders per day, STILL hasn't covered the $1.2 BILLION spent to install these trains. Let alone the ongoing maintenance and costs of this line. Capital costs are always ignored by train supporters.
They may want to ignore a few billion dollars on a single line, but that's the pie-in-the-sky financial lunacy that brought the US to its current crisis: ignoring the actual costs of building something, and trying to only worry about the ongoing operational costs. Those billions add up in a hurry!
Eight thousand passengers a day doesn't get you close to break-even on a new line. You have zero idea about the costs to do high speed rail. Pushing 150 MPH peak (and averaging 75 MPH - not much faster than driving) is the limit of existing rails in the US. If you want to speed it up, you need ALL NEW LINE. You'll spend (a documented) $170+ million per MILE. To upgrade the Acela Express (456 miles) you'd spend $77.5 BILLION to get it up to standards to support 200 MPH peak, and 120 MPH averages. And with 3 million riders a year, $40 per person in "profit", it would take over 6 CENTURIES to recoup the deployment costs alone.
Six hundred forty five years, to be precise.
Again, Willie, compare the ridership - 3 million per year on the Acela Express versus 90 million per year on the Guangzhou-Changsha (about the same distance) line. HUGE difference in what's needed to make it an economic reality. You can do a $15 billion line (the equivalent costs in China for their high speed rail lines) because you have 30 TIMES more riders. Suddenly that 645 YEAR payback timeline becomes a more realistic 10-12 years.
Economics is NEVER a strong suit for US high speed rail supporters. They cannot make any economic basis for their claims. It's all fantasy money, it's all fake. They have zero concept of costs, or time-value of money, of business or profit or expenses. "You have to spend your way out of a deficit" is an equivalent concept for these people...
PEAK OIL
Amtrak ridership will continue to increase whether you like it or not.
That is what I said in my post. If you read it, you wouldn't be lumping me in with Willie. I was trying to tell him he was full of shit. You just did it way better than I did.