There’s very little serious discussion these days on what to do about US passenger rail service, outside the occasional silly swipe about Amtrak’s low ridership compared with the much more generously subsidized air travel and highway systems, or a smarmy comment about railroad nostalgia.  It’s a bit idiotic, really, to blame nostalgia for encouraging America to keep up with the high-tech bullet trains of other countries, and only slightly less idiotic to expect an anemically supported mode of travel to run neck-and-neck with the steroid-pumped, oil-promoted interstate highway system.

But, these tend to be the twin drums beat by the anti-rail crowd, and the accompanying arguments are usually no less lacking in reason or vision.

For example, about a year ago the Freakonomics blog published a fairly comprehensive selection of recent commentary on US passenger rail, with a title that couldn’t miss the point further if it tried: “Can Amtrak Ever Be Profitable?”  Continue reading →