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NARP as well as many of the people posting to these forums claims that political support for Amtrak would dry up if the long distance trains were discontinued. Would it? If the long distance trains were discontinued, which I have advocated, the NEC and State Supported and Other Short Distance Corridor Trains would still exist. Based on FY11 numbers, if Amtrak could have discontinued the long distance trains, it would have had an operating loss of $15.4 million in FY11, which is considerably smaller than its operating loss of $630.7 million before depreciation, interest, and miscellaneous charges. In actuality the savings would have been less during the year of discontinue and perhaps several years thereafter because of stranded costs. Discontinuance of the long distance trains would leave 26 states with some Amtrak service, although Oklahoma, and Texas, with just the Heartland Flyer, may be just probables. Those 26 states have 52 senators, which would be enough to vote for federal support of a truncated Amtrak. Moreover, with a little horse trading, several of the senators from states losing Amtrak service might vote for it.  Whether the members of the House of Representatives retaining Amtrak service would vote for it, thereby ensuring its continued funding, is a bit more problematic. They would have the numbers (approximately 57 per cent of the members without Texas and Oklahoma), unless they had a large number of "down state" representatives that did not support it. North Texas representatives would probably support Amtrak if the Heartland Flyer is retained, but the valley representatives might not be so enthusiastic about it.    This strikes me as another reason to discontinue all transport subsidies in time, although I don't believe it will happen because of the emotion laden politics surrounding the issue.
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