this post was submitted on 06 Nov 2023
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While I love that they're investing in rail travel, it would be so much better to make a separate national high speed rail service that competes with amtrak. Thier investors can inject their own billions.
Rail is something that works well when organized at government level, not by private entity.
Whether the privatization of the rail exploitation is beneficial or not is subject to debate but privatization of the rail construction and maintenance as been a disaster for the UK and I don't know any other country who attempted to do that.
Building an entirely new rail high speed rail network would cost hundreds of billions of dollars, if not trillions, with a construction time measured in decades and a repayment time of a century, if ever, because passenger rail is very low margin.
In our modern economy where quarterly results are the only thing that matter there is no company that will make that investment.
Who the fuck cares about "repayment?" Government services are supposed to provide societal good and compensate for market failures, not turn a profit.
I think it should be fully publicly owned, but OP said investors should get together to compete with Amtrak, and those investors ostensibly want repaid.
No, I meant amtrak can invest in itself. Taxpayer money shouldn't be used to enrich corporations. Unless we're buying shares and getting some control, perhaps.
You do know Amtrak is not a private company, right?
https://www.railwayage.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Cantwell-Railway-Age-North-American-Rail-Supply-and-China-3.jpg
Yes, when you're a communist government and don't have to pay people for rights-of-way and don't need to worry about profit and don't need to worry about where the money is coming from you can do things very quickly.
We do not have those advantages.