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How about privatizing Amtrak sleepers or diners?

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Even if Amtrak were authorized to privatize some or all of its long distance train services, e.g. sleepers, on-board food service, etc., there are likely to be few takers.  The probability of earning a decent return on the investment is very low.   As I remember it Pullman bailed out of the sleeping car business because it was losing its shirt.  And the railroads got out of the passenger business because it was killing them financially.  So why should we believe that the economics of long distance trains or any segment of them has changed since the inception of Amtrak, which was a political response to a failed business model?   The Great Southern Railway, which is a private consortium, operates three of Australia's long distance trains, i.e. The Indian Pacific, The Gahn, and The Overland.  I have ridden all three of them.  They are first class.  GSR gets a substantial subsidy from the Australian government to help cover the costs of the services and provide a reasonable return for the operators.  They may also own the equipment; I am not sure. The last time that I checked the Indian Pacific runs two days a week between Sydney and Perth during the high season and only one day a week during the off season.  The same is true for The Gahn, which runs from Adelaide to Darwin.  The Overland runs three days a week between Adelaide and Melbourne.  The Overland is a coach only train featuring business class and coach class.  When I rode the train two years ago it had a dinning car. The Inspector General's 2005 Analysis of Long Distance Services showed that sleeping car passengers required a substantially higher subsidy than that required for coach passengers. Whether this is still the case is unknown.  Amtrak appears to have increased the sleeping car accommodations charges substantially, but its costs undoubtedly have increased as well.  I suspect that the subsidy required to transport a sleeping car passenger is still higher than the subsidy required to haul a coach passenger.  Not to worry, the patricians can say that they deserve the higher subsidy because they pay more in taxes than the plebes roughing it in the coaches. The best answer for the long distance train problem is to discontinue them.  Unfortunately, given the political inertia associated with them, they will probably be around for the foreseeable future.  They are like entitlements.  Talk about getting rid of them produces a flurry of emotionalism that has little to do with rational decision making.  And Amtrak will probably continue to run them because only a government entity has the money, our taxpayer dollars, to keep them going.
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