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Does bad dining car experience mean Amtrak is dying?

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[quote user="John WR"] [quote user="schlimm"]According to the nice Harpers article which was largely pro-Amtrak, the riders of LD trains are mostly foamers, the elderly with physical problems that make flying difficult, people with a phobia about flying and British elderly.   Not the basis for much of a growth market or future.[/quote] I'm not so sure about the potential of people with physical problems, Schlimm.   And more to the point, Joe Boardman is not so sure either.   He points to statistics that show many riders have physical problems and that other riders who don't have severe enough impairments to show up in the statics still do have some impairment and find riding trains a lot easier than anything else.   And one area Amtrak is spending money is in upgrading stations to make them more accessible for people.   [/quote] If one of the justifications for the long distance trains is to provide transport for physically challenged people or people who are afraid to fly, shouldn't the service, since it is largely taxpayer funded, be extended to every community with a trigger population, i.e. every community with a population of more than say 35,000? What is the justification for providing a service to the mobility impaired residents of Longview, TX, for example, and not providing the same service to the greater number of people who live in the Rio Grande Valley, i.e. Brownsville, McAllen, Pharr, Harlingen, etc.?
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