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The United States federal debt stands at $15.2 trillion.  Add another $3.7 trillion for state and local debt, and the debt burden, which one way or the other must be paid for by the people, is approximately $18.9 trillion. This is more than the GDP. And this is before considering unfunded liabilities. Add in the latest estimate for these liabilities and the total comes to approximately $65.9 trillion. How did we get to this point? Many complex factors have loaded the U.S. with its current debt burden.  One of them is the argument by numerous interest groups, including passenger rail supporters, that their cause is not bounded by economic constraints. The benefit to society is so great, so they argue, that the nation has to have it irrespective of the cost and whether the users will pay for it. The argument is not the exclusive prerogative of passenger rail supporters. Sport teams, symphony orchestras, you name it, all claim that their activity adds immeasurable value, beyond what their patrons are willing to pay, and therefore they need to be supported by the taxpayer. If Amtrak's long distance trains meet a vital national need, then they should serve every community in the United States with a population of more than 25,000, which is admittedly an arbitrary cutoff.  Of course, this notion is unworkable.  Just in Texas it would cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year to subsidize long distance trains that very few people in the Lone Star State would use.   All modes of transport receive some subsidy, although the amount of it depends in part on how one defines subsidy.  At the end of the day it does not matter.  The same argument applies to the hidden agendas of those who sponsored and oversaw the transition of what remained of intercity passenger rail to Amtrak. Whether they thought that it would succeed or fail or did not know does not matter. It is history. The key question is where does passenger rail make sense?  What problem does it solve? Is it the optimum solution?  What problems will the solution create?  Do people really want it?  Will they pay for it?  For my money, outside of a few relatively high density corridors, passenger rail does not make any sense.  But it does make sense, within reason, in a few of its existing, as well as some potential future corridors.
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