[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.