Which makes it undesirable and unprofitable and without Nixon creating a federal one would have evaporated long ago.
a real shame...one of my fondest memories was climbing aboard the Phoebe Snow, 59 years ago when I was seven years old, and going to visit my grandparents in upstate NY...the conductor kept an eye on me, making sure I got to the dining car and off at the right stop...those were the days, my FRiends...
Upstate NY would probably still have a train system. The NE corridor is the only part of AmTrak that’s profitable. The rest of the country, where towns get further apart and flying becomes more likely, is really where trains died the minute there was an alternative.