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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by bobwilcox Railroads got relativly few government subsidies in the last century while other modes of transportation got lots of government. However, railroads and canals got large government grants in the nineteenth centurary. The theory was that transportation is fundamental to goverment goals so new modes of transportation are kick started with government money. This has happened in the US and all of the other developed countries. The question is not if you are going to use tax money but where you are going to spend it. Widening I81 or expanding the NS from Chattanogga to Enola? [/quote] If I form a trucking company and want to access the Interstate System from New York to Chattanooga, I can uninhibited as long as I've paid my access fees. The Interstate system is open to the public. If I form a rail company and want to access the rail system from New York to Chattanooga, I am blocked because it is a proprietary line. Why in the world would anyone want to spend tax dollars on something inaccessable to the public? There would be no return on that public investment. Most vehicles on the Interstate are there because there is no alternative. Spending public money on NS would only aid NS and it's stockholders, meanwhile I-81 would still be heavily trafficed, thus not even an indirect benefit to the taxpayers. This is what the pro-Amtrak crowd can't seem to get into their thick skulls. You cannot compare highway and airport spending with Amtrak spending, because they are completely different entities. And you cannot compare highway and airport spending with rail infrastructure spending because the rail lines are privately owned while airports and highways are publicly owned. Why is this so hard to understand? Anyone who continues to play the disparate entities is completely off their rocker, and that includes politicians who spout the same lines. AMTRAK IS A PUBLICLY OWNED OPERATING COMPANY THAT JUST HAPPENS TO OWN THE NEC BUT OTHERWISE IS ALLOWED TO INTRUDE ONTO PRIVATE PROPERTY OF THE CLASS I RAILROADS. APPARENTLY, THE PRICE OF TICKETS TO RIDE AMTRAK DOES NOT COVER A SIGNIFICANT PORTION OF IT'S COSTS, OTHERWISE THEY WOULDN'T KEEP BEGGING FOR MORE AND MORE SUBSIDIES. IF AMTRAK CHARGED A TICKET PRICE THAT COVERED IT'S OPERATING COSTS, I GUESS NO ONE COULD AFFORD TO RIDE IT. THAT SHOULD TELL YOU SOMETHING! The only way you can begin to compare tax expenditures on rail with those on highways and airports is if the nation's rail infrastructure is separated from the operating companies, ala AT&T or ala RailTrak. Then and only then can you start to have legitimate comparisons of what is spent on what. If spending on highways and airports was discontinued, the nation would plunge into economic chaos. If spending was discontinued for Amtrak, no one outside the NEC would even know about it.
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