What most people fail to realize, but David P. Morgan saw clearly in 1959, is that taking people from one place to another is not a profit-making activity without some degree of taxpayer provided infrastructure: highways, airports, the national air traffic control system, ports, you name it. But because Amtrak is tiny and politically feeble, it gets treated as the red headed stepchild, a convenient punching bag for innumerate legislators to beat up on when they think they need to look "tough on spending."

Airline food served at your seat? Sure, THAT's going to make people want to take the train. I get it that some degree of pre-preparation is needed; what the hell, Southern Pacific understood that as long ago as the 1930s and 1940s, and people thought SP served pretty good meals back then IIRC.

Amtrak's unions would not like it, but the best way to improve the on-board food service and contain costs would be to let Landry's and the other major restaurant operating companies bid competitively for the franchise to operate Amtrak's food service. Amtrak could write a specification setting minimum standards for differing types of service, and then give a 3 or 5 year exclusive franchise to the successful bidder.

Many people have likened long distance trains to hotels on wheels. OK, I get that but there is an expectation that Amtrak should do everything in house, and elsewhere in the travel and hospitality business that's generally not how things work. When you stay at a hotel, the company that owns the real estate seldom manages the hotel, and a different operator entirely runs the hotel's bar and restaurant. Why not apply the same thinking to Amtrak?