In the event it ever becomes necessary to shut down air traffic again, how do you propose people travel from coast to coast? Many working folks drive cars around town that won't make it cross country, and a three day, round-the-clock bus trip is unrealistic for most people over 50 / under 18 / with bad backs. Passenger rail makes for a more resilient transportation system, and makes it considerably more difficult for a small group of determined no-goodniks to shut the whole country down. Passenger rail doesn't have to be Amtrak, but if it's not, what's the alternative?

Why not encourage more transatlantic passenger shipping to prevent intercontinental travel from being disrupted? It boils down to economics. The market for long-distance passsenger rail service is too small to be sustainable without government subsidies. So either, Amtrak is a business or a public service. Currently, it is being asked to serve both roles. It can not continue to offer long-distance routes and be profitable. The goals are mutually exclusive, yet Congress is demanding both. I think rail offers the most efficient form of medium distance travel, and freeing a smaller, less bureaucratic Amtrak from the burden of subsidizing long-distance travel from Northeast corridor revenues (and taxpayer expense) should result in improved service.

To be a viable business, long-distance passenger rail (which I'm defining as for distances where a train trip will take longer than a plane trip, when time wasted at the airport and getting to the airport are accounted for) will have to recast itself in the way that the cruise industry has, by becoming a way for tourists to see the country in style. The only ship to run the transatlantic route now, the QE2, sells it as a leisurely and luxurious way to travel to Europe, and bundles the cruise in a package with return air. Tierny's article discussed two companies, American Orient Express and Acadian Railway who are offering land cruises (rather expensively.)

I don't think passenger rail travel should simply end, and I do support emergency funding for Amtrak so that it doesn't shut down this week. However, Amtrak, as a monopoly and a large entity suffers because it is run on a philosophy of not caring. (This is not to say that individual Amtrak employees do not care. Many of them do care about their jobs and do excellent work, but they work in a culture of corporate indifference.)

The federal government should be spending money on the rail infrastructure, just as it does on the highways and air traffic control. National rail service should be opened up to competition, like the airline industry. Amtrak will be forced back to running the routes that it can do profitably. More importantly, it will have to compete, and that should raise the level of service it can provide.