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Amtrak does not pay any property taxes. Taxing districts are prohibited by law from imposing any taxes on Amtrak. Equally important, at least for understanding, the hoist railroads that lift most of Amtrak's passenger train miles outside of the NEC are prohibited by law from passing any taxes through to Amtrak.  This includes property taxes.  I looked at the SNCF financials several years ago. Amongst other things I was surprised to learn that the SNCF includes the financial results of its station restaurants in the financial results for train operations. That would not be permitted in the U.S. But it sure helps with the claim that the trains are making money. The Japanese and French high speed lines were built with massive infusions of taxpayer money for the infrastructure and the equipment. Upon being placed in service, the capital costs (infrastructure and equipment) were depreciated.  The taxpayers wore the depreciation costs. As the years rolled by the book value of the properties declined appreciably. When the depreciated (book) value of the capitalized property reached a point where it was feasible to do so, the SNCF spun off the infrastructure to a third party. The value of the property spun off was much lower than the initial cost of the project, i.e. depreciation had reduced its book value. The infrastructure operator, because of the lower book costs of the transferred assets, is able to bill the train operator a lower rental than would have been possible before the spin off. Thanks to the lower capital cost pass through, the train operator can show a profit on its operations.  So too can the infrastructure operator!  And if they structured it correctly, upon the transfer of the assets, they could have told the taxpayers that they realized a gain on the transfer.  Meanwhile, what goes unsaid is that the taxpayers wore the up front cost of the infrastructure, and they will never get their money back. Amtrak could do the same thing.  When the capitalized cost of the NEC, which is Amtrak's biggest investment,  is sufficiently depreciated, it too will be able to claim that it is making money on the NEC. It can retain the properties or it can spin them off to a subsidiary and have both entities claim that they are making money.  The two items mentioned above pertain to passenger rail.  Real and imagined subsidies for the nation's airways, highways, waterways, etc. are irrelevant to the question of where should the United States development passenger rail, what should it look like, and who is going to pay for it.
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