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[quote user="solzrules"]That was as interesting read.  A question:  out of the coutries (regions) listed in the article, how many have successful private railroad ccompanies?  Out of those companies how many are passenger only vs. freight only?  Some figures in that area may indicate which business models are success.  Does another country have a program similar to Amtrak (by this I mean a passenger rail network spread out over a similar amount of miles and similar trains) that is successful? [/quote]Very good questions and not easy to answer.  "Private" in the U.S. is not even quite the same as "private" in Canada, more different in Western Europe, which is different in Eastern Europe, and so forth.  "Success" is not on similar terms either. VIA is the only passenger service that has similarities to the U.S. (of which I'm aware), and it's success is measured on different terms.  From a Canadian perspective, my Canadian railroad friends I think are happier with VIA's outcome than we are with Amtrak's outcome, but all that means is that VIA has a narrower gap between expectations and reality in Canada, than Amtrak in the U.S.  For example, if we supposed that VIA had a higher subsidy per passenger-mile it wouldn't necessarily mean it was less successful, as the value of the subsidy means different things in Canada than it does in the U.S., just like I rebel on spending $5 on a three-bite appetizer at a restaurant whereas my wife thinks it adds meaning to the meal. Having spent some of my career in railroads overseas I relish the differences and have learned a lot from my railwaymen friends at foreign railroads, but I've never tried to imagine either that "we're better" or "they should use our practices."  One has to be very careful importing practices and ideas to be sure that they really do fit with the culture and organization, and importing anything as profound as a different definition of "success" is fraught with peril.S. Hadid
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