[citrate05]

There's a big difference between "Amtrak's current long-haul routes do not turn a profit" and "intercity rail in the US only makes sense in the Northeast Corridor." There are many metropolitan areas in America that are separated by only a few hundred miles, a very normal and natural distance for a train route. The problem is that Amtrak doesn't currently connect those cities, and/or doesn't run enough service to make those trips viable.

For example, the Cleveland and Pittsburgh metro areas are over 2 million and just over 3 hours apart by train or car. However, there is currently only one train from Cleveland to Pittsburgh a day, and it leaves at 1:54 AM. Obviously, most people will drive if that's the only alternative, but that does not say much about the general viability of inter-urban rail between those two cities.

There are good discussions about Amtrak routes and the most recently-planned Amtrak expansions here: 1. https://humantransit.org/2023/07/amtraks-endless-ridership-c... 2. https://humantransit.org/2023/08/amtraks-long-distance-train...

[philwelch]

I never said intercity rail in the US only makes sense in the Northeast Corridor. I think it makes the most sense there but there might be other viable routes. I even mentioned Brightline as another example.

[citrate05]

Feel free to read “mostly” for “only” in my response, then. My point is still that even outside of Brightline (East — there’s also Brightline West, LA to Vegas) and the NEC, there are actually a lot of city clusters and corridors in America that would be an appropriate distance and population for reasonably high-ridership train travel. There are clusters of cities in Texas, the Southeast, the Midwest / Rust Belt, Colorado, Northern and Southern California, and the PNW that have all been identified as good candidates for new or substantially improved service. I disagree that this constitutes just “a few places,” as you originally said.

[philwelch]

The fact is, Acela is the only proven line. Amtrak could be profitable with enough money left over to invest in improvements if it was first reduced to Acela, but instead they are forced to waste taxpayer money on slow, unprofitable long haul routes.

It’s possible that other viable routes exist, but unfortunately the political environment makes some of them impossible to build. For example, a French railroad operator working on the California high speed rail project bailed out in 2011 due to “political dysfunction”, instead building a high speed rail line in Morocco that finished in seven years. So in some theoretical alternate universe where California was as politically functional as Morocco, maybe they could have a modern bullet train between LA and SF. I’m not holding my breath for that to happen though.

Personally I’m happy to leave the question to private investors. I wouldn’t put any money in your proposed Cleveland-Pittsburgh line but maybe you can prove me wrong. I am also dubious that Texas would be a good candidate for passenger rail; Texas has very good highway coverage and the way Texas cities are laid out, you’d need to rent a car on either end of your train journey anyway so it really makes more sense to drive.