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Railway Age has historically been the Industry's "house organ". As such, they tell Managers "what they want to hear". That keeps the ads coming in.
To my knowledge, the industry's position regarding Amtrak affairs has been "we signed a Faustian Pact with the Devil. It was to be gone in five years but it's here. Maybe it will just go away".
But RA appears of late to emulate Passenger Train Journal publishing articles such as this from Andrew Selden making the time worn case that LD trains, apparently rechristened as "interregionals", don't lose all that much and provide benefit to areas away from Corridors. So I must ask what is going on with them?
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Railway Age had an interview in December 2018 with Matt Rose, the soon-to-be retiring Executive Chairman of BNSF. Rose talks about a lot of railroad topics in the interview, including some remarks about Amtrak.
quote:Vantuono: Let’s talk about Amtrak. We’re asking the question, is it a failed public enterprise experiment? Rose: The question is, what’s the litmus test of success? Or failure? And if the litmus test is to be profitable, yes it’s probably a failure. But you put that same litmus test against any commuter rail operation, any highway project, any public transit system also fails as those things don’t make money.
Even the airlines are using subsidized infrastructure, we just don't charge them with the full cost of air traffic control or the public subsidies of airports. Only Amtrak has to assume the full cost of its operations.
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