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......and I'll go back to the good ole' irrefutable argument: You won't know if it will work or not unless someone actually tries it first. Take a chance, run the prototype, collect the hard data, run the numbers, then and only then will you have a basis for making a sound judgement. <br /> <br />Amtrak tried to supplement income with a nickel and dime M & E, but somewhere along the line someone must have realized that what they were doing was data collection of a prototype business model, meant to be applicable to a larger operation. I can't believe Amtrak really thought the M & E they were running was the be all end all of the freight supplementation for passenger service model. Any business person will tell you it's all about volume. Amtrak's failure with M & E was not taking it to the sustainable level (I know, I know, then they would have been in competition with the Class I's intermodal operations). <br /> <br />If that's the case (e.g. Amtrak can't run a true money making M & E due to unfair competition with Class I's), then the obvious solution to the "need" to have passenger rail in the U.S. is to do what should have been done 30 years ago: Instead of creating a national passenger rail company, the federales should have just subsidized the most useful Class I passenger operations (possibly with tax breaks based on passenger miles). Return passenger operations to the Class I's with enough tax and regulatory incentives to make it worth their while. Then we might see a revival of a true M & E operations in the vein of GN's Western Star.
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