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"Joe Boardman has said that back in 1970 Congress made a contract with the American people to maintain a national rail network." "Amtrak was initially created as a for-profit enterprise with common stock issued only to railroads, though only four chose to become stockholders./8 The law also charged the federal transportation secretary with choosing the metropolitan areas that would constitute the basic system of service. The initial plan was for lines radiating out from Chicago and New York, with routes chosen based on a set of clear criteria including cost effectiveness. However, once the plan was released for comment, “political resource allocation abounded through the system” and additional routes were added./9"  This language was taken from Page 2 of A New Alignment: Strengthening America’s Commitment to Passenger Rail, which is a Brookings Institute study on the renaissance of passenger rail in America. The Brookings Institute generally gets high marks for the thoroughness and objectivity of its studies. The quoted paragraph does not imply that Amtrak had a contract to maintain a system of long distance trains.  It had a mandate to develop a cost effective passenger rail system.  Given the costs  of the long distance trains, it would have been impossible to have a cost effective passenger rail network as long as they were a part of it.  On the other hand, one could claim that because of politics, i.e subsequent interventions by politicians to maintain their favorite routes, the long distance trains were baked into the mandate, although I don't see it that way.   If as Boardman maintains the Congress contracted with the American people to maintain a long distance passenger train network, then why was Amtrak permitted to discontinue the National Limited, the North Coast Limited, the Pioneer, etc. If one has a contract for a national train system, they should be required to keep it as originally intended. Or could the contract be satisfied if Amtrak, for instance, dropped the Sunset Limited, Southwest Chief, and Empire Builder, keeping only the California Zephyr, with connecting trains from Ogden to LA and Portland, where passengers could connect with corridor trains?
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