New Rail Study

[MasonJar]

The point I was making is that it is very popular for politicians, particularly for conservative politicians to make much of the Amtrak subsidy as being a drag on our economy and an example of government waste. In fact virtually every form of transportation in this country is subsidized by the government in one way or another, and Amtrak's is probably the smallest subsidy of the bunch. Folks may argue about the size of Amtrak's subsidy or not, but to somehow decry it as "socialism" is to miss the point that our entire transportation infrastructure is an example of pure socialism in action. Eliminate socialism and we go back to the 1700's or whenever the time before the Erie Canal and Cumberline Gap Road were first built.

I would have to disagree. We are, in fact, one of the only nations with multiple, competing airlines instead of the standard national airline. That isn't socialism by a long shot. AMTRAK is, in fact, grossly over-subsidized in order to maintain a service for a relatively small percentage of the commuting public, primarily the Eastern Corridor. I say let AMTRAK either meet it's own operating expenses or go under, just as thousands of other businesses and hundreds of old railroads have done. But if tax dollars are used, then I want full AMTRAK service in my town, and in the towns of every single other taxpayer as well.

You overlook the fact that those multiple "competing airlines" are all lined up at the same Federal "trough", sucking back millions more in taxpayer dollars than Amtrak could ever hope to see. Not calling it socialism doesn't change its true nature: the Government using your tax dollars for what your elected representatives deem to be "in the greater social interest".

A rose by any other name...

Wayne

What comes around goes around. Multiple competing railroads were lined up in the mid through late 1800s... In the first half of the 20th century, Canadian railroads (especially CNR) were given a social mandate (serve Canadians) as well as their business mandate, and consequently not allowed to abandon routes.

I have a copy of the 1931 Royal Commission report on the state of transportation in Canada. To that point (more or less a period of a couple of decades), CNR and its pre-existing component railways (Grand Trunk, Intercolonial, Canadian Gov't Railways, etc) had been given in excess of $2 BILLION dollars in large part to support passenger service (i.e. their social mandate). That's nearly $25 billion today - what could VIA do with that?

Andrew