New Rail Study

[doctorwayne]

All of this leaves me wondering why passenger rail service works so well all over the world except in America...

It doesn't work any better in Canada, either, and two of the main factors are:
1. the distances between major centres

2. our comparatively low population.

As much as I like trains, as far as I'm concerned, our population is too high already. While our Government is quite willing to throw tax-payer dollars at all sorts of problems, there just aren't enough of them to go around, (see both 1. and 2. above). Also, outside of a small percentage of the population, there's not a great deal of interest in passenger rail unless it's "high speed" or short-haul commuter lines. The former should be the purview of private enterprise, while the latter is generally left to Provincial and/or municipal jurisdictions.

While the U.S. has a population almost ten times that of Canada, it's still spread out over an almost-as-large area. The other factor is the American public's "fear" of government involvement in projects such as this. One of the reasons that Amtrak is continually struggling for funding is the idea that dumping government money into what "should be" private enterprise is somehow the first step on the road to communism or socialism. Until the public (and their elected representatives) get past that mindset, Amtrak will continue to be underfunded.

There may be hope, though, as the current Administration seems relatively comfortable injecting public funds into private corporations such as banks and automobile manufacturers - perhaps Amtrak's lobbyists are standing in the wrong line-up, as the one that they're in has them standing behind both the Interstate Highway system and the airline industry. It's too bad that "socialism" is so damn selective.

As for the rest of the world, the nuances of ideology are plucked or discarded as suits the situation (or the government).

Wayne