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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by gabe I The parts of Amtrak that are so inefficient and unwanted that they have no business existing in the first place would be more exposed and they wouldn't have the existing superstructure/umberella of Amtrak keeping the "money pit" in place. I think the subsidies are really the problem to begin with. If nothing were subsidized, people would travel on the means that are most efficient and an industry would find a way to make money meeting the demads of such travel. As of right now, the subsidies mask such efficiency determinations, and allow people--to borrow a phrase--to export their transportation costs to other entities. [/quote] Gabe, Please point out ONE service that is so inefficient and unwanted. Other than a certain region saying, well, no one rides any trains outside of our area, what services aren't being used? Even the Sunset, with all its problems - many of which created by the freight railroads - still carries a respectable amount of passengers for the few times a week it runs. Your point on subsidies is way too late. To talk about having subsidy-free transporation is fantasy. You can't unring a bell. Transportation subsidies began nearly a century ago when this country went on a road-building spree and didn't stop until it built all the airports with federal money, thank you. No one anywhere in the world travels on a subsidy-free transportation system. In the U.S.., unfortunately, a bully group that hates Amtrak likes to single it out and attack it regularly whilst ignoring the BILLIONS of dollars yearly dumped into other so-called private transportaiton systems. Try to get Southwest Airlines to build one airport or fund FAA. Or ask GM to bulid the highways. Yet the lousy CEO of SW frequently attacks Amtrak as if his airline isn't thoroughly subsidized. Rail transportation susidies is relatively new, circa 1971. The initial land grants to the RRs, before anyone objects, have been long paid-off, so declared Congress years ago.
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