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[quote user="Samantha"]Long distance passenger trains in the U.S. serve less than one per cent of the traveling public.  Most people walked away from them decades ago.  [/quote]Is Amtrak's small market share a function of demand or capacity? You can't reasonablty compare 15 long distance routes which serve limited markets against the entire national transportation network. A more appropriate comparison would be to compare the markets Amtrak does serve to other modes serving the same market, such as Chicago-Denver or Denver-Reno or Denver-Central California or Central California-Pacific Northwest. Sure, when you've only got one train a day in those markets Amtrak is still going to have a small share, but at least the comparison would be a valid one, and the percentage would no doubt be higher. When people, as you say, "walked away" (your words not mine) from passenger trains gas was cheap, airports were a breeze to get through and skies were friendly. Those days are gone. In the last several years Amtrak's long distance ridership has been steadily increasing. The Sunset's 2007 ridership was up 22% over 2006. (Probably a recovery from the loss of traffic after Katrina.) Overall long distance ridership was up 2.4% over last year. Polls show <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A43767-2002Aug4">the public supports funding Amtrak</a>. <a href="http://www.harrisinteractive.com/harris_poll/index.asp?PID=638">A Harris poll last year</a> asked which forms of transportation should be expanded to meet future passenger needs. The top two choices were corridor trains and long distance trains. People may have "walked away"' from trains in the 1960s, but there is good reason to believe they want to come back. The folks who are trying to kill long distance trains are actively preventing them from doing so.  As for the Sunset's role in the national debt, bear in mind that the Sunset's fully allocated losses amount to less than three hours of spending in Iraq. Yes, I agree there is a limit to how much we the people can spend. Frankly, we'd be a lot better off if we spent a 2-3 billion a year on the most energy efficient domestic transportation system than a billion every four days on questionable adventures abroad.
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