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I'm so sick of this crap about passenger rail not being "viable." There's not a highway or airline that is "viable" from the private enterprise perspective, so why should rail transport have to live up to a better standard?! Before you **** and moan about Amtrak's lack of "market share" or how it isn't "profitable," consider two things: First, railroads (both freight and passenger) were the ONLY transportation mode that EVER was GENUINELY profitable, bar none (every other mode has gotten hordes of government subsidies, while RR subsidies only became necessary BECAUSE of the subsidies received by all of their competition!); second, highways and aviation have basically become tapped out in terms of capacity in anyplace but the most rural areas of the country, and we NEED RR capacity, which is tremendous by comparison to either in terms of space needed to move X amount of people, in order to provide non-congested means of travel. <br /> <br />If there is a "sinkhole" in this country, it is the airline industry. The government provides airports and air traffic control for the airlines and charges them miniscule fees that don't come close to covering the costs of either, and regularly bails out airlines that regularly go through bankruptcies because EVEN WITH the gigantic subsidies they receive, they can't consistently turn even their make believe "profits" on their operations. Plus, the cost of indifference of the airline industry to providing security with respect to their operations has been paid for in blood by thousands of American lives and the loss of the WTC in New York city, and <b>it isn't any better now.</b> I think we should "privatize" all of the country's airports - make the airlines buy them, pay PROPERTY TAXES on them, and operate their own traffic control - then they can try to charge something that resembles the REAL cost of air travel to passengers. I guarantee they won't be in business on anything like the current scale, if at all, for long! [:(!]
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