Are Passenger trains in N. America ever profitable

[PNWRMNM]

Dakotafred,

I went back and looked. I can not find the post I was responding to. I guess the moderators pulled it. The screen name was someone I never saw before, ChicoJack IIRC. That is all I know.

Mac

[Deggesty]

His screen name was "calicos jack." I considered asking him if he were a pirate--about 300 years ago, a man named Rackham (or something like that) irritated the settlers in the Albemarle and other areas of the Carolina coast. Because he liked to wear clothing made of calico, he was called "Calico Jack." He was captured, and he gave pirating up.

This man had a little history of posting, but his posts were few and far between.

[Falcon48]

In response to Schlimm's post, the railroads paid for all of the land grants in the form of free or reduced rates for government traffic (one of the conditions of the grants), which remained in effect through two world wars.  There was a congressional study that came to this conclusion after WWII, and which formed the basis for repealing the favorable rate treatment going forward.  An analagous situation for passenger trains would be if the government provided "front money" for capital investments, which the passenger railroad was then required to repay over time.  No major passenger railroad is in a position to do this.   

[schlimm]

That is a debatable point, dependent on calculations of land value.  No doubt the grants were paid back, forfeited, and through lower rates paid back in kind, over a 50+ years period.   My point was that it was a proper government function to subsidize the construction of the lines at no cost to the government.  The entire nation benefited.