I love Amtrak , Should not all railfans?

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Jetrock

Okay then...can anyone here convince me that highways or airports could exist without public subsidy?

Or even keep a straight face while TRYING to claim that?

And if THEY can't, why it is such a crime against nature to subsidize passenger rail the way every other nation with a rail system worth a darn does?

Jetrock,

The answer to your first question is simple: Yes, unless you believe user fees are subsidies, in which case the answer is no.[^] (That's the closest to a "straight face" smilie I could find!) We could conject that if there were no publicly funded highways or airports that some enterprising person would come up with there own toll roads and airstrips, but since the public funding via user fee or general tax receipt is the norm today, the conjecture is moot.

However, to answer your REAL question e.g. "Are there any other publicly funded transportation operations similar to Amtrak using other modes?", the answer is of course NO. Other nations publicly fund their rail infrastructure, and they do fund both passenger rail operations, as well as airlines and bus lines. We generally don't do it that way in NA, we'll fund the infrastructure (mostly through user fees), but we don't fund the operations because private enterprise does a much better job of that. Since our rail network has the anomoly of being a private proprietary system, it doesn't get any public funding like highways, waterways, and airports.

[Jetrock]

QUOTE: We could conject that if there were no publicly funded highways or airports that some enterprising person would come up with there own toll roads and airstrips, but since the public funding via user fee or general tax receipt is the norm today, the conjecture is moot

In other words, you can't support the argument that airlines or highways could exist without public funding. I suppose I should compliment you on your ability to hold a poker face--heck, you could get away with raising on a busted flush like that.

Amtrak is a unique mode in North American transportation--but, as you state, railroads are a unique mode in themselves, and the reverse of other modes where the government subsidizes the infrastructure but not the transportation. I would argue that, in the case of railroads, subsidizing the transportation rather than the infrastructure would seem to be a more economical way of doing things than trying to reverse the situation. Or are you suggesting that we nationalize railroad right-of-way, in addition to privatizing Amtrak?

I wouldn't go that far, myself...