I'll have to ask my ex-high school QB, ex-econ doctoral roommate, ex-airborne ranger bud about this, but I don't think the massive capital investments involved in public tranpo systems can survive in today's gubmint's regulatory systems without some kind of taxpayer support. I know a tiny bit about the railroad barons but anti-trust laws might prohibit that these days.
I believe public transportation systems are important (how would I get around in Boston without the subway?). I believe that it will always have to subsidized to some extent by gubmint and taxpayers up to a certain point.
On the other hand, I worked for Amtrak for 6 years. I was a contractor for 5-1/2 years, worked harder than any Amtrak employee, yet got completely screwed salary-wise. I was finally hired full-time (at a hugh salary increase) as a full-time employee when the homo-cabal got their boinked butts fired with the advent of the weird NJ-cabal administration change.
I quit not long after getting the imprematur of a legitimate employee and moved to Boston with my ex, who remained an employee, while I moved back into the private sector.
All I can say is that Amtrak has tons of overpaid, dead-weight, top-heavy, useless management types, has tons of useless unions problems.
The basic history of Amtrak is that they took over passenger carrying operations after the freight rail companies couldn't afford to fufill their original right-of-way obligations to carry passengers, which they had agreed to, long before the advent of interstate highways and autos.
Public Passenger Transpo is a good thing, but I'm starting to think we need to wipe out Amtrak and the frigging unions and start fresh. I think the Brits privatized their train system, but haven't kept up on that news.
I do like traveling on trains, and still want to take a trip across the states by train.
Agreed that some or all of the causes that Amtrak can't compete in the market are due to union or government rules, which add significant cost.
I like riding Amtrak, find the crews fairly pleasant and helpful, but think they'd be even more so if there was actually a profit at stake.
I read that Amtrak cut some of the NYC - FL service to cut costs, even though that is one of their most heavily travelled intercity routes. Made me think that if cutting costs was their object, just shut the whole thing down, then at least they'd "break even."
However, I personally am in favor of keeping it funded - in the overall scheme of public money spent on transportation, Amtrak gets very little. Although I think they'd have a chance at a profit without unions. That's not going to happen, though, as long as the freight trains are unionized. Anyway, that kind of socialism has been a part of America for a long time now.
But, like I say, I hope the intercity trains keep running.