"GRRR" and "Google maps says..." --
Thank you very much for the facts about the size
of western Europe. I freely admit I was wrong,
and I do appreciate the corrections, and the
kindness with which they were given. I learned
things I did not know. So western Europe is a lot
bigger than I had thought! Wow. (I still don't know
how they manage to get goods to people with such short
freight trains. Guess those run a lot more often than
I thought.)

BOB2 --
Were you having a bad day when you wrote what you did
in reply to my post? If so, that is sad.
Your unkind remarks were completely uncalled-for.

I am quite willing to admit it when I am wrong -- as
I just did above. I hope you are willing to do the same.

You made some incorrect assumptions about what I meant
about requiring public agencies to be run like businesses if
they are to deserve to be supported by our tax dollars.
I apologize for not making my meaning clear. What I object
to is requiring all public agencies to be run like cutthroat,
ruthless for-profit businesses, where the only thing that ever
matters is the almighty dollar, not providing excellent services
and treating your employees and customers with respect and dignity.
I think you and I both agree about that.

There are a number of services that people need that no
organization can ever make a profit doing, and they are well
worth supporting with our taxes. In that, you and I agree
completely. And of course all organizations should have good,
ethical, practical, well-thought-out business plans, and those
business plans must include the cost of providing excellent
services -- including the cost of paying employees well and
treating them well, and paying for the good-quality things
necessary to provide those excellent services.

We both agree that the US does not spend nearly enough on
infrastructure -- and that this includes passenger rail of
all kinds.

And I do agree that it is important for us to get our money's
worth from whatever we pay for, and, yes, poor ol' Amtrak is
not reliably giving us our money's worth. But Amtrak desperately
needs much more than the starvation budget it has been on since
it was formed, and much better management, if it is ever to be
able to deliver reliably great service.

I am pleased that you do not support eliminating all long-
distance passenger trains.

Back on the topic of this thread -- the FRA offering to let
private companies operate 3 long-distance Amtrak trains:

Thanks for sharing what you know about the details of this
proposal. "The @#$%& is really in the details" in this thing.

What earthly good will it do to just change operators if they
will have to operate with the same starvation budget and the
same attitudes towards long-distance passenger trains that
Amtrak has to live with? Oh, they could probably save what
is really an insignificant amount of money by paying their
employees a lot less than Amtrak employees now get, but -- why?
There IS money for a decent subsidy for Amtrak; it is just
both being hoarded (see "the Panama papers") and being squandered
on endless wars and a bloated military budget -- not to mention
the one trillion dollars that a giant corporation that is
a major contractor for the US military (Halliburton?) cannot
account for. So -- please do not try to convince me or
anyone that there is not enough money for what our society needs.
And, here in California, you yourself have posted here repeatedly
about the huge amount of money the CHSRA has squandered on the HSR
boondoggle -- that could/should have been spent on rail projects
that would definitely have significantly lessened highway congestion
and would have provided more transit options to people.

I hope this clears up your misunderstandings about what I posted earlier.