Saw this article recently: [thehill.com]

One quote in it, I thought, was interesting:

"After examining various models, I believe we need to establish a federally chartered, fully independent not-for-profit corporation to operate and modernize our ATC [air traffic control] services," House Transportation Committee Chairman Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa. said during a speech last June at the Aero Club of Washington.

[rant ignore=if it bothers you don't read it]
Many non-commercial aviation system users are against privatizing, because among other things of a fairly stiff "user fee" to support it. But the idea of a "federally-chartered, fully independent not-for-profit corporation" sounds like what Amtrak really should be, rather than a pseudo-for-profit (never has made one and never will), pseudo-public corporation. If Amtrak were to be a formally non-profit, without federal appointees on the Board, would things look any different? I suspect they would; among other things, certain long-distance routes we have now would go away, but others might (re)appear if it looked like they could cover expenses one way or another. Sure, there would still be federal and other government money involved, to ensure that some minimum level of service remains available and to cover capital expenses. You don't think that non-profit ATC bunch would be buying and maintaining the system components from scratch, do you? Think of it, on the operating side, like the federal funding to keep airline service going at small airports where profitability simply isn't possible. And federal and other government money would still be needed for capital expenses; those can't reasonably be covered out of operating revenue.

But the key, I think, is independence (of direct federal corporate control) and abandonment of the "for profit" fallacy. Precious few regular passenger operations in the world have made enough money to cover operating cost for 50 or more years (probably closer to 100), and none in that period have covered both operating and capital cost out of fares. Somebody or some other service pays the capital expenses, and even if one particular route or brand makes money on an operating-only basis it has to be shared with other parts of the service that don't to keep the whole package going.

There's a reason why private railroads wanted out of passenger service - its cost was, in many cases, nearly a 100% tax on freight earnings. With the large railroads around now, after all the mergers, the "tax" rate for private passenger operation might not be as high, but it would still be significant. Also, the most logical route for many passenger runs still uses more than one railroad system so an independent operator of them, able to use any railroad and with a unified reservation and logistical system, is the best approach - alias Amtrak or something that, operationally, looks a lot like it.

Anyway, far too many words generated by one little paragraph in a news story. Cheers! [/rant]