[Prrometheus]

>You can't end a debate on rail travel by saying it's not profitable without subsidies. Roads would not happen without massive government subsidies either.

The marginal road might not be profitable, but some roads would be built without subsidies. The earliest highways in America were funded by private businessmen who thought it would be profitable to connect the towns that they lived in. Private roads have a long and successful history, even if in modern times they have been crowded out of the market by trillions of dollars of federal and state projects.

One of the four great intercontinental railroads was built entirely without government grants or subsidies. If I recall correctly, it also lasted the longest.

When I criticize the government or question the need for its existence, people often respond with "Oh yeah, how would you get around without roads? The government provides all our transportation. That's useful.". However, the argument is a straw man, historically ignorant, and blinded by the status quo. Too often people are so constrained by how things are that they can not think about how they were different in the past or how they could be in the future.

[anewaccountname]

"One of the four great intercontinental railroads was built entirely without government grants or subsidies. If I recall correctly, it also lasted the longest."

Which one? From what I've read they all got the government to make eminent domain seizures for them (so even if this one railroad paid for the land it got, it still had a government subsidy in the form of a strongarm).

[Prrometheus]

The Great Northern Railway, built by James J. Hill, a great visionary and businessman:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_Railway_(U.S.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_J._Hill

[anewaccountname]

I don't know if a railroad funded by a railroad tycoon's other subsidized railroads counts as not being subsidized itself =P.

[Xichekolas]

Oh I agree there would be roads/railways/airports without government subsidy. Frankly there is a need for those things, so someone will build them. I should have been more clear in that 'the road system as we have it today would not have happened without government subsidies'.

Back to the topic, what I was trying to point out is that it's silly to expect unsubsidized private railways to compete with massively subsidized road/air transport and still be profitable. It's hypocritical to always expect rail to bootstrap itself while giving such massive assistance to road/air, then claim that it's somehow rail's fault when it cannot compete.