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[quote user="dakotafred"] Don't get me wrong. I love my Empire Builder, and do not go along with Sam1 and others who would discard the long-distance trains. I have stood up for those trains many times here. As long as they continue to attract riders -- and they do -- I think their subsidy is easily justified as tiny in the larger budget scheme and in view of our special national rail heritage.  [/quote]      In the larger scheme of things you are correct.  Amtrak’s annual losses, including those associated with the long distance trains, are tiny compared to the federal budget and federal budget deficits.  Nevertheless, little things can add up.<o:p></o:p> Each year I read the OMB federal budget summary tables as well as the CBO’s adjustments. In addition, I read the Transportation Department budget as well as several others periodically.  When I say that I read them, I mean line item by line item. They make for interesting reading if you are a numbers person.  Otherwise not so interesting! <o:p></o:p> Annually the CBO publishes a list of items in the proposed budget that it believes could be eliminated or reduced, thereby reducing the annual deficit.  For FY11 I identified 68 line items in the CBO report for items equal to or less than the annual operating subsidy for Amtrak.  The total for these items is $26.5 billion, which is still a small percentage of the federal budget and federal budget deficit. But it makes a point.  Small items add up to big items especially over time. <o:p></o:p> Assuming that ten per cent of the annual depreciation and interest expense is assigned to the long distance trains, which may be a bit conservative, in FY10 the long distance trains accounted for approximately 48 per cent of Amtrak’s operating loss.  Amtrak has racked up accumulated losses of $28.5 billion since it began operations.  Assuming that the ratio of the long distance train operating losses to Amtrak’s total losses has remained constant (48 per cent) since Amtrak began operations, the accumulated loss for the long distance trains is approximately $13.8 billion. Had this money been placed in an account earning the average ten-year Treasury note interest rate for 40 years, four months, it would have grown to $78.7 billion by September 2011.  This would have been a nice kitty to enhance existing corridors or start new ones, which is the only place where passenger rail makes sense. Some people have opined that I must be against trains since I have long advocated eliminating the long distance trains, and I have been a frequent critique of Amtrak.  They are wrong.  I am enthusiastic about trains where they make sense. I take five to seven train trips every year, which is not easy to do from, within or to Texas given the paucity of Amtrak’s services in the Lone Star State. But spreading limited dollars over a so-called national passenger train network, when they should be focused where trains make sense, may be good politics, but it is a poor public transport solution.
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