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There is more to this.
To get out of the passenger business and turn everything over to Amtrak, the railroads were required to pay the government a pretty large sum of cash, plus make available the car and locomotive fleets at scrap prices, PLUS they had to guarantee pay and benefits to all the employees Amtrak didn't take. IOW, instead of being bought out or bailed out, the railroads had to buy their way out of the passenger business.

The railroads really didn't pay a pretty large sum. In fact, in general they didn't pay anything at all. They had the option of "joining" Amtrak. If they "joined" they had to pay a "membership fee" of half of what they recently lost on passenger service. The deal big government offered was like saying to a homeowner as "you can continue paying your mortgage, insurance, and property taxes every year" (the deal and contract the homeowner willing signed up for), or "you can pay a one time fee of half of your usual payments, and we'll force the taxpayers pay the bills forever after, and you still get to keep your house".

And there was more to it. Big government promised the owners a tax credit to cover their expenses. A tax credit, unlike a tax deduction, is a dollar for dollar refund. Sixteen of the railroads that "joined" Amtrak took this tax credit, and didn't end up paying a cent. And it gets better. Some railroad companies got to pay part or all of their "membership fee" with their now obsolete passenger equipment, which would otherwise be worth only scrap. Big government then reached into the taxpayer's pockets and paid those owners cash (via the tax credit). Do you think the government bean counters, lawyers, and commissars over, or under, paid for this passenger equipment? Does a bear poop in the woods?

And what about the railroad companies that didn't pay taxes? Either because they were bankrupt or had already cashed so many other tax credits given to them by big government, there were four railroad companies who didn't pay any taxes (PC, BN now BNSF, Milw Road now CP, and GTW now CN). The big government bean counters, lawyers, and commissars didn't think it was fair that these owners got left off the gravy train. It wouldn't be fair, because those owners, over the decades, had paid their fair to create Amtrak (through lobbying and payments to politicians) just like the tax paying owners. So they came of with a convoluted farcical scheme to give these railroad companies obviously worthless common stock in Amtrak, which would allow them to get their well earned tax credit so time in the future, if they ever became tax payers again.

But, gosh help us when the big government bean counters, lawyers, and commissars try to "do the right thing". Some banana boy speculator got a hold of a majority of this worthless Amtrak stock, and has unleashed his army of lawyers with frivolous lawsuits. Where is tort reform when we really need it? Anyway, if banana boy gets lucky, us taxpayers will be pick pocketed again, maybe for over $1 billion.

Pretty good deal huh? And it was voluntary, big government gave the owners of the railroad companies an option. They didn't have to take the deal, and several groups of owners (DRGW, SOU, CRIP, Georgia) chose not to.

I know it's "politically correct" now a days to pretend that big government just randomly comes up with these boondoggles and big business, completely by surprise, is forced to deal with the consequences. This is not the case, at least not with Amtrak. Amtrak was created by big government only after the railroad company owners spend decades and millions of dollars on lobbyists and politicians to make Amtrak happened. The now freight-only railroad companies are forced to host Amtrak because that was the deal they bought and payed for.

As a right winger, all we ask is that big government should stop pick pocketing us, and that big government should be run like a business. If any company made a deal like the big government side of the Amtrak deal management would be run out on a 'rail' by the shareholders. Liberals, flame on!