Actually much of what Eric says is absolutely right Mook, and not out of the Administration's "playbook", that's both a cheap shot, and pure horsecrap.

We have had a most fundamental failure in America to adequately capitalize and operate a modern first world rail passenger service for the purposed of providing efficient, effective, reliable, and economically sustainable transportation of people in our most congested (mostly mid and short distance) interurban corridors.

Worse, where we may have actual demand for longer distance intercity services (and I would include the 1-5 and I-96 corridors with a lot of midsized city pairs overlapping with overlapping markets) are not reliable, frequent, efficient, or very effective in serving those markets.

I disagree about Eugene to Redding. In Europe, if they did offer service from Eugene to Redding, it would be a more frequent, reliable, and mostly daylight set of services, connecting to population centers beyond just that segment, like on to Portland, Sacramento, SFO/OAK, Fresno, Chico, Davis, Bakersfield. And, in corridors like the multistate I-5 corridor, rail services would be offered as part of a fully integrated set of corridor services, both express and local, like we need for the Regional and local services serving the short distance sub markets like the Cascades, Capitols, San Joaquin's, and LOSSAN.... and Like I would hope the proposed "Daylight" service would be integrated.

We run the current intercity program as this nostalgic remnant, of the fleeting memories of folks my age....about the "good old days".....of the Super Chief or the City of Los Angeles, and the not with any vision of how this makes any sense at all, to much of a travel market, or as any kind of viable transportation alternative that provides much real benefit for those paying for the subsidies to run it.....

I love nostalgia, I love the posts about the old days, I loved the Chief nd the City. I love the pictures of the Super Chief with the SDP's on the point, and I would love to be 18 again and see those Gyraltes whirling through the night. But, I am a professional, I am a retired transportation economist, and from that standpoint, the current long distance mess at Amtrak, which has been years in the making, is working very poorly as a viable and sustainable business model for rail passenger service.

Will it be fixed, is it fixable? So far, there appears to be little in the way of vision to guide Amtrak, and from the last couple of Amtrak CEO's I've met personally, there hasn't been for many years.

And, with that curmudgeonly diatribe, I notice that the Senate has once again reversed almost all of the proposed Administration cuts to Amtrak, as they did in the budget bill earlier this year..... So, we will likely continue to provide some levels of intercity service, for the next budget year, at least....