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Ok, Disclaimer- I am not a McCainiac! However, read on: A. It seems that we all agree long distance passenger rail cannot support itself- can't even break even- unless it's luxury cruise like AOE, and in that case we don't need the FedGov involved. B. It also seems we agree that the percentage of ridership on long distance trains is so low it does not significantly affect either air or road travel. C. Additional agreement: passenger rail can and does make significant contribution to reduced congestion in all modes in dense corridors, both as commuter and as medium distance trains between city pairs, ie Boston-NYC, NYC-Philly/Baltimore/DC, LA-SF, PDX-SEA, etc.... D. It seems most of us agree Amtrak missed the ball in some corridors which had potential of joining the above, esp. Dallas-Houston, and others. NOW- let me advance an idea that you may or may not hate me for. Disclaimer- I am not a McCainiac, do not particularly care for the man. But: Since the long distance trains don't pencil out and aren't significant contributors to transport flow, eliminate them. Then, take their funding, and invest in in both existing and new corridors. Since these systems have a relatively high success rate, expand these corridors as ridership levels increase. Theoretically, ridership is a reciprocal pattern. IE if you get 1000 people SF-LA, and maybe 200 would also like to go to Pheonix, then if you increas the SF-LA ridership to 5000, you should have 1000 people who want to go to Pheonix, and enough to justify adding that route to the corridor. (BTW those numbers are just to illustrate the point. I think more than 1000 are needed!) Eventually multi-corridor regional systems will develop, and bump into each other, until a passenger can, if so inlcined, ride from one end of the coast to another. Granted, these systems would not be the same as riding one train CHI-LA, but then most people don't want to anyway. And granted, this means we would have to make do with much smaller systems for some time, as expansions would take decades to close the gap, but it would be much easier to gulp HSR costs in small bits than in one big lump. I am safely stationed in the caboose, so you can now fire away. It's steel and they tell me bullets won't go through it, but I did buy it second hand..... Alexander
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