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Amtrak has stumbled along since 1971 for three primary reasons.  A dedicated group of enthusiasts have successfully lobbied Congress to provide enough money to keep it running.  They know how to press the right political (emotional) hot buttons to garner the needed support.   Amtrak provides a viable, arguably important service in the NEC, which has fielded a powerful congressional delegation that supports it.  Perhaps most importantly, in the scheme of things, Amtrak's federal funding is a miniscule per cent of the federal budget.  It does not even hit most radar screens.  I suspect that many of those in Congress who vote to support it have little idea of whether Amtrak provides an important service, how it is funded, and where passenger trains could be viable.NARP, like most rail advocates, when pressed for hard nosed data to support the continuation of rail services that lose heaps of money while providing a marginal social benefit, i.e. long distance passenger trains, cannot produce any numbers that a reasonable person could accept.  They ignore any data that does not support their argument, which is what I would do if I was being paid to advocate for a point of view.  The information presented on NARP's website is frequently wrong, incomplete, or misleading.  For example, they claim that general aviation received a federal subsidy of $1,453 billion for 2007.  They are wrong.  During 2007 FAA expenditures were $14.8 billion, of which $2.3 billion was transferred from the general fund.  Most of the $14.8 billion was covered by ticket and fuel taxes.  NARP's website leaves the reader with the impression that the entire federal aviation subsidy ($1.453 billion) went to the airlines.  Again they are wrong.  Airline flights account for approximately 30 per cent of the FAA workload.  Most of workload involves controlling general aviation (includes business aviation), air taxis, and military flights in civilian airspace.  Thus, approximately 70 per cent of the subsidy went to general and military aviation.  Most people, who fly their own plane, ride around the country in the company jet, or jockey a military plane, are not candidates for taking the train.
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