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[quote user="Lehigh Valley 2089"] After looking at what Amtrak has gone through with the national government, would it really be a good idea to privitize the passenger railroad? It worked with Conrail, so why not Amtrak? It would take a lot off of the goverments shoulders, and allow Amtrak to not worry about funding.<img alt="Hmm" src="/TRCCS/emoticons/emotion-40.gif" /> So, what do you think about this possibility? Do you think that it could really help the system, or just send it into turmoil? [/quote] As discussed in the latest issue of Trains, Nuovo Trasporto Viaggiatori, a private operator in Italy, is planning high speed (187.5 miles per hour) passenger rail service connecting Turin, Milan, Rome and Naples.  Start-up is planned for later this year.   The article did not present any comprehensive financial details, i.e. fares, rentals for facilities use, etc., but the investors apparently believe that they can make money with a privately owned and operated rail service. The article indicates that they have raised the capital in public financial markets. I am keen to see how it works out. Hopefully, as the title of the article suggests, it could be a model for the U.S. The Great Southern Railway in Australia is operated on a contract basis by a consortium of private investors. The Indian Pacific, The Gahn, and the Overland are its trains.  The operators receive a subsidy from the Australian federal government. In turn they are required to meet stiff performance standards, or they run the risk of losing the contract.  Having lived in Australia for five years, I have ridden all three trains on numerous occasions.  I rode them when they were operated by the government and afterwards.  The private operators improved the performance significantly. The V Line in Victoria has been privatized along lines similar to the Great Southern Railway.  Again the transition took place whilst I lived in Melbourne, and I saw first hand the improvements that followed the transition.  Even the tram and bus lines in Melbourne were privatized. I moved to Australia at the behest of my company because the Victorian government was privatizing the electric grid.  The state government, which had owned it, sold it off, and my company bought a piece of it. As a result, amongst other things, the private operators were able to shed more than 20,000 unnecessary employees, who constituted a hidden tax on the customers, thereby delivering a better service for the utility customers. Most of the employees who lost their jobs found others of equal value or retired with a nice incentive package. Privatization involved temporary pain. But the benefits, at least in the case of electric utility service in Australia, outweighed the pain and resulted in an overall benefit for the population as a whole. As long as Amtrak or any operator is forced to run long distance trains, which are used by a small percentage of intercity travelers, privatization would not work.  However, privatizing passenger rail service in the relatively small number of corridors in the United States where trains make sense, i.e. NEC, southern California, Illinois, etc. might work if the operator could reduce the bureaucracy that encumbers Amtrak and force higher productivity from its employees.   Unfortunately, given the political environment in the United States, privatization of Amtrak or any form of intercity passenger rail is not likely. So Amtrak's losses, which reached a cumulative $28 billion at the end of FY11, will continue to add to the taxpayer burden associated with keeping it afloat.
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