"But America needs airlines! We can't let them go bankrupt!" people say. "Really?" I asnswer. "Why not? Which industry does the nation need most to survive?
Answer: If the airlines disappeared tomorrow, it'd be a nightmare, but we'd pull through. That was proved during the post-911 period when air travel was banned; things were inconvenient, but we survived. But without trains, America dies: coal and oil, spare parts, machinery, foodstuffs in bulk, industrial chemicals, and more are all delivered by rail. There aren't enough eighteen-wheelers in the world to take up the slack. Airlines cannot fly coal to powerplants. In any rational reckoning of worth, the rail industry is vastly more important to the survival of this nation than are passenger airlines.
Yet the airlines get the federal bailout, and rail gets told to go get stuffed.
Infrastructure is the province of government. From seaports to canals to roads to railroads to interstates to airports to space launch facilities, government has always shouldered the capital outlay and maintenance costs of basic transportation infrastructure in this country. It is a practice as American as apple pie. Just as they did with the Interstate System fifty years ago, federal, state, and local government should now build and maintain a nationwide network of interconnected regional high-speed rail systems.
Nobody cares if Uncle Sam covers the airlines' tab; if the airline industry were forced to own and operate their own airports, navigation aids, and other infrastructure they wouldn't make a dime of profit. But let anyone propose that the railroads get the same sweet deal and suddenly we're operating on the strict free-market system again.
Which just goes to show that, when it comes to the airline industry, some people like to serve up their free-market capitalism a lot hotter than they like to eat it.
Back in the '50s, when the federal government was a little more aware of what its functions were, the Eisenhower administration justified the interstate highway system for defense purposes. The same justification is just as valid for the rail system.
I just can't phanthom the logic of the government not doing everything possible to increase train travel, as it is obvious that passenger air travel is totally overwhelmed with security and safety issues. And, PS: when I travelled by train, there were a lot of citizens who were wonderful employees in good paying jobs working for AMTRAK.