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Long distance routes: Which to continue, which to cut?

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Under any conceivable scenario the government, not Amtrak, will have to put up the front money to expand passenger rail.  A key question is whether the taxpayers, who own the government, at least in theory, will get their money back. Passenger rail corridors could be developed and operated by multiple operators. That is how passenger rail developed before Amtrak.  That is how the California High Speed Rail Project is being developed.  And that is how the Trinity Railway Express (TRE) between Dallas and Fort Worth was developed.  Amtrak did not have anything to do with them.   Amtrak has become a large, lumbering bureaucracy.  A strong argument can be made that smaller, regional developers and operators could be  more effective in delivering passenger rail than a highly centralized Washington based bureaucracy. Maybe a better approach would be to open the routes up to contractors, as per Australia, with the appropriate subsidies, and see what happens.  A small centralized coordinating staff in the DOT probably would be helpful in calling balls and strikes, but opening passenger rail to competitive bids per route could produce a better outcome. The nation does not have one airline, one bus company, one power grid, etc. Why should it have just one intercity passenger rail operator?  Come to think of it, when the California High Speed Rail Project comes on line, assuming that it does, the nation will not be locked into just one true intercity passenger train operator.
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