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[quote user="ontheBNSF"] [quote user="Sam1"] Amtrak does not pay any property taxes on its properties. Taxing districts are prohibited by law from imposing taxes of any sort on Amtrak. Equally important, at least for understanding, the hoist railroads that lift most of Amtrak's passenger train outside of the NEC are prohibited by law from passing any taxes through to Amtrak.  This includes property taxes.  Have you read the financial statements for the Shinkansen and TGV?  Do you understand the nuances of accounting in Japan and France?   I looked at the SNCF financials several years ago. Amongst other things I was surprised to learn that the SNCF includes the financial results of its station restaurants in the financial results for train operations. That would not be permitted in the U.S.   The aforementioned high speed lines were built with massive infusions of government money. Upon being placed in service, the capital costs were depreciated with the taxpayers wearing the depreciation costs. As the years rolled by the book value of the properties declined appreciably. When the depreciated value of the capitalized property reached a point where it was feasible to do so, the SNCF spun off the capital structure to an independent third party. The value of the property being spun off was much lower than the initial cost of the project, i.e. depreciation had reduced its book value. The independent third party infrastructure operator, because of the lower book costs of the capitalized infrastructure, is able to bill the train operator a lower rental than would be possible before the spin off. Thanks to the lower capital cost pass through, the train operator can claim that it is making money. So too can the infrastructure operator.  And if they structured it correctly, upon the transfer of the assets, they probably could have told the taxpayers that they actually made money for them in the process. Meanwhile, what goes unsaid is that the taxpayers wore the up front cost of the infrastructure, and they will never get their money back. Amtrak could do the same thing.  When the capitalized cost of the NEC, which is Amtrak's biggest investment,  is sufficiently depreciated, it too will be able to claim that it is making money on the NEC.  It can retain the properties or it can spin them off to a subsidiary and have both entities claim that they are making money.  These two items have something to do with passenger rail.  Whatever subsidies have been paid to or on behalf of airways, highways, waterways, etc. is irrelevant to the question of where should the United States development passenger rail, what should it look like, and who is going to pay for it.  In other words, what problem are we trying to solve?  And were would passenger rail be the optimum solution?    <div style="clear:both;">[/quote]</div> Freight railroads pay taxes on their infrastructure which is transferred in cost to Amtrak. All I am saying is that there should be a free market for transportation and that is where rail does best historically. I think you may be correct SNCF is subsidized but their tgv lines are profitable but their rural lines aren't. The JR group is a private corporation and they do make money on there Shinkansen lines but loose money on rural lines, they are required to divert money from Shinkansen lines to rural lines and they required fix there prices. My guess is that the JR group would be more profitable if they had less government oversight. Where something should be built should simply be a matter of supply and demand. Subsidies are important because they distort the market place. So just get rid of subsidies. For the most part high speed rail would be popular in trips of 100-800 miles. High speed rail can work in my opinion from say Chicago to NY but would also be good for Chicago to St. Louis. [/quote] The freight railroads pay property taxes. They are prohibited by law from passing those taxes through to Amtrak. The SNCF and JR high speed lines earn an operating profit because the taxpayers ate most of the up front capital costs through depreciation. So for them to say that they are profitable is a bit disingeneous.  I have long advocated getting ride of the subsidies for all modes of transport, although it will never happen. If we did so, perhaps rail could cut it with moderate speed trains in relatively short, high density corridors. But it would be a tough nut to crack.
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