An interesting take surfaced on railroad.net (<-- direct link to comment in question) that brought up a point I hadn't considered regarding the creation of Amtrak--the regulatory burdens that made it necessary for a federal takeover of passenger rail in the first place (not to mention most of the Northeast freight rail infrastructure).
In short, if you were a freight railroad, you had to run the passenger trains the government said to run. You could not discontinue services that were bleeding cash without permission (which was seldom granted) . You could only charge the fares the government allowed you to charge (which didn't cover expenses), and the state set the property taxes upon the land your tracks and facilities occupied at whatever the state felt like charging.
Sounds like to me, if the Staggers Act (along with regulatory relief pertaining to passenger services) had happened in the (early) 1960's, freight railroads might have remained healthy enough to shoulder the losses inherent in passenger rail, at least until the beancounters found their new religion in the "Church of the Holy Operating Ratio". I base this on Conrail, which was something of a raging dumpster fire until freight rail deregulation.
Now whether we'd have a passenger rail network any more extensive than Amtrak's current one is anyone's guess. The NEC at least would probably still need to be a federal operation, owing to the expense of maintaining electrification (like it is anywhere else in the world).
---PCJ (who uses the service at least three times a year)
