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Property, plant, and equipment, excluding land, is a wasting asset.  These are the major components of infrastructure. Amtrak depreciates PP&E over the estimated life of the assets. It uses straight line depreciation. The allocation of depreciation is a function of the under lying cost driver(s).  Weather, erosion, etc. are factors. But the biggest factor is running trains. They literally pound the biggest component of PP&E to a point salvage value. The most likely indicator of infrastructure wasting on a railroad is train miles. Although I don't have access to Amtrak's books, I would be surprised if they did not use train miles or something like it to determine how to allocate depreciation. Having said that, although at least through 2012, Amtrak says that it doesn't allocate depreciation to routes.     Amtrak bills freight carriers to use its tracks. The billings probably include a depreciation component. Using revenue miles or any component of revenue, which are not cost indicators, to determine the amount of depreciation to bill a foreign renter would not like go over well with the freight operator.
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