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[quote user="henry6"] Congress decides what you can or cannot do Congress decides how much you can spend and on what you can spend it Congress decides whether or not you can run dinning and sleeping cars [/quote] As long as the people's representatives are asked to pony up roughly a dollar for every two dollars Amtrak collects in revenues so that it can pay its bills, the Congress should have a voice in how the people's money is spent. There was a day when the Congress, through its regulatory agencies, told the airlines where they could fly, how much they could charge, what services were appropriate, etc.  And to a lesser extent they did the same thing for the intercity bus companies.  Then they got smart.  They got out of the airline and bus regulatory business.  And most people benefited from their doing so. Hopefully, they will do the same thing with respect to intercity passenger rail, although I don't expect to see it.  Is it possible? In Australia, where I lived for five years, a significant segment of passenger rail was out sourced by the federal government to the highest bidder.  The government subsidizes the service.  It also helps set service standards.  But the carrier is free to determine the overall level and quality of service.  Works pretty well.  Moreover, providing passenger train service in Australia is not a monopoly.  Different vendors have a piece of the action where the services have been privatized.  Included in the mix are the Queensland and New South Wales governments.  Is Australia going to build a high speed passenger rail system similar to what they have in parts of Europe, Japan or China?  Nope.  Don't need it.  And neither do we, or at least we don't need a system that emulates what the Europeans, Chinese or Japanese have.  We need a system that meets our needs.  Not bragging rights.
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