We don't know what either one of them will do if elected. As far as Amtrak goes, my hunch is that Trump would turn out to be a pleasant surprise, Clinton a disappointment, as Obama has been.

I generally lean right politically, but the GOP is an embarrassment when it comes to Amtrak. So-called conservative radio talk show hosts like Michael Medved spend hours blasting "stupid choo choo trains," but fail to mention that Amtrak's $1.5BN subsidy is basically a rounding error in a federal budget of nearly $4TN a year. Getting worked up over that amount of money makes conservatives look like small minded dolts, but maybe that's what Medved is trying to do, as counterintuitive as that may sound.

If Amtrak got a $10 a year subsidy for every resident, i.e. a $3.1BN subsidy, we would have a truly first rate passenger rail system.