[mousquet]

I'm afraid cost to upgrade the wide infrastructures will go far far beyond $2bi, though...

Well at least, in most cases they wouldn't have to pay for expropriations since a fair network would already be there, but the plain fact of upgrading tracks obviously costs much more than a few rail cars, would they be overpriced.

Amtrak might be trying some trick, say some showcase to advertise passenger rail services by something that would be a little fancier and faster than their current stuff, so they may eventually raise more funding for the real heavy work.

Also, in spite of common preconceptions and the load of public subsidies it requires to maintain a decent network, rail transit is nothing much so "socialistic". It is subject to marketing, short-term tactics, rough competition and so on just as any other business. That's just about what I was saying a bit ironically. Don't feel like there'd be any kind of ideology in there, just a business that is still quite helpful to broader attractive development. Sure it works better than cars or airports in this most essential respect.