Not a big surprise to be honest, and I think a lot of politicians and people in general who complain about Amtrak needing subsidies, who complain that the federal government shouldn't be running rail service and so forth will be surprised when they find out the cost of what they wish for. Like with most things, this is a case where people /politicians who are from areas that represent why Amtrak loses money think that Amtrak subsidies are for 'those other areas' and don't realize they are a big part of the cost. A similar thing is likely to happen with the post office, when recommendations come up that in rural areas they consolidate post offices into regional ones and stop home delivery, which is very, very expensive to operate on a per house basis, the same people who complain about the post office being a money loser will complain when they lose service. Every study of Amtrak has shown that the 'corridors' Anderson mentions could be operated on a break even basis or at least within the current subsidy structure, yet politicians and people resist when Amtrak proposes stopping service to lightly traveled rural routes and consolidate around densely travelled, high revenue areas. For the record, I am not in favor of that mindset, but I also find it funny that politicians when Anderson came out with this statement talked about the extra subsidies Amtrak got, when Amtrak has not exactly seen any real increase in subsidies in many years, especially if compared to subsidies to other transportation types.
In the end it comes down to selfishness, the people who for example say if transit is meant to exist it should be operated by private businesses paying their own way, especially when it is for 'those people', what they leave out is how much "those" people subsidize "them", they don't see it *shrug*.
I don't think long distance train travel on the major runs is why Amtrak loses money, I think they lose money because they are in the business of providing rail travel to places no commercial operator would go near, Amtrak was set up in the first place to keep train service going because private railroads don't want to operate passenger trains, and I think with Amtrak service they should be looking at things like economic benefits of things like the Northeast Corridor and the like, or the social impact trains might have for small towns that don't have easily accessible rail travel or where it is the only way for people to travel, or even as potential way to get people out of the way of a natural disaster who have no other way to travel.
