Which is sort of reflects my thinking --

You need to remove a lot of the politics and spin, I believe. Frankly, Amtrak was created by Republicans in order to help rid the railroads of a money losing burden. And among Amtrak's greatest critics and enemies was the Democratic adminstration of Jimmy Carter who frankly tried his damndest to wipe it out.

I'm not a fan of the system, I don't see how you can be. It's inconventient, incredibly expensive, slow, unreliable, and run down.

But I think that comparing it to airlines and highways, where the US government has made massive expendentures for decades upon decades and claiming that passenger trains haven't held their own isn't fair. Frankly it's as if we've purposely starved the patient to death and now we're standing over its death bed screaming at it for looking so unhealthy.