On Mon, May 25, 2009 at 1:26 PM, P. J. Alling <[email protected]> wrote: > Adam Maas wrote: >>> >>> In the US road taxes, in the form of gasoline taxes not only pay for road >>> repair but also subsidize various rail systems, which cannot pay for >>> themselves out operating revenue. >>> Bob W wrote: >>> >> >> Actually, most rail in the US pays for itself. Most rail _PASSENGER_ >> service does not, despite being both subsidized and also using right >> of way that is payed for by a 3rd party (the freight railroads) at >> nominal cost. Only some of the commuter services and Amtrak's >> high-speed corridor in the East run on dedicated right of way and the >> Amtrak right of way pays for itself (Amtrak's losses come from the >> other less-popular routes). >> >> >> > > I forgot the Passenger Caveat. Yes freight pays passenger service does not, > and that's been mostly true for about 100 years, I suspect that the Amtrack > High Speed services only show a profit through a certain amount of balance > sheet magic. > > > --
Passenger service used to show profits when mail service was also supplied by rail. As soon as it moved to air and truck, Passenger service quit being profitable in the main. Mail was what made rail passenger service viable. The Amtrak High Speed service makes a profit by being a short very high usage run. It's notably faster and less hassle than flying or driving. -- M. Adam Maas http://www.mawz.ca Explorations of the City Around Us. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
