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I don't want to see passenger rail go under.  I want it to be part of the solution, which is in relatively short, high density corridors. Long distance trains make no economic sense. Whether passenger trains are operated by Amtrak or others is immaterial. I would be just as happy to see the corridors bid out to the lowest effective cost bidder. The outcomes probably would be better. Trucks pay fuel taxes, heaps of them, that help pay for the roads they use. True, the really big trucks don't always pay the full cost of the wear and tear they impose on the roadways, but they pay a lot of fuel taxes.   The railroads do not pay any fuel taxes. Do the property taxes that they pay proportionally offset the fuel taxes paid by truckers? Under current law the host railroads may not pass any taxes through to Amtrak for hosting its trains. So the amount of property taxes paid by the freight railroads is immaterial with respect to the passenger trains hosted by them. The most important questions are where does passenger rail make sense, what should it look like, and how will it be paid for. What truckers and airlines do is immaterial to answering the questions. Equally important, what they do in Japan or Europe is also immaterial to what we should do in the United States with respect to passenger rail.
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