The author of this piece is incapable of logic. He just likes choo-choo trains.
What the author fails to mention is the devastating effect unionized labor had on the rail lines in the middle of the twentieth century. The Less than car load frieght was done away with because of the cost of unionized labor, passenger service was also done away with in large part because of the extra overhead of unionized labor. Rail today is not competitive for many forms of frieght, one major ltl truck casrrier pulled 20,000 pup's off of rail this year because of the unpredictable nature of rail shipping. Most LTL shipments are not extremekly time sennsitive but with inventory's trimmed and lead times cut to days rather than weeks it's not ppratical to have a two or three week transit time from shipper to cognsignee. So the picture is a little more complex than the author paints with his GAAP manuel and his excel spreadsheet.
The author of this piece, whom I know, doesn't know one locomotive from another. He grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia and used rail to get around because it was a normal part of everyday life.