FairRailPolicy: What If We Leveled the Playing Field for Passenger Rail?

Back when Congress treated Amtrak more like a corporation and less like the service provider to the American people that it is, Amtrak was credited not for its benefits to communities like it is today, but more for a corporate requirement to be profitable at the farebox. In 1995, as on many occasions prior, Amtrak was directed to stop running yet another long-distance train. This time, the Broadway Limited. By corporate standards, it was losing money hand over fist—$24 million in costs against $6.6 million in revenue. Adjusted for today’s dollars, that’s nearly $50 million to run the train versus $14 million coming back in the till. Based on the old requirements, the Clinton Administration eliminated the Broadway Limited.

PRR Passenger Train at Chicago Englewood Station, September 1939.

NO FORM OF TRANSPORTATION PAYS FOR ITSELF

But here’s the thing: every mode of transport bleeds red ink somewhere. The interstates you drive on between Dallas/Fort Worth and anywhere else in Texas? Built with hundreds of billions in federal concrete, patched every year with state and federal tax dollars. The flight you grab at O’Hare, or Denver International? Backed by FAA controllers, TSA checkpoints, and airport construction grants you’ll never see on your ticket stub. We subsidize roads and airports as though they were oxygen, then turn around and scold Amtrak for needing help. That’s dishonest math. FairRailPolicy

WHAT IF WE TREATED PASSENGER RAIL FAIRLY?

Gave it the same shot? Picture a reborn Broadway Limited, an overnight “hotel on wheels.” You leave Chicago at 9 p.m., settle into a roomette or a coach seat, eat dinner in a real dining car, sleep while the rails hum, and wake up in Penn Station ready for a meeting. Instead of fighting I-80 toll plazas or standing barefoot in TSA lines, you got actual rest.

THE ECONOMICS TODAY ARE NOT WHAT THEY WERE IN 1995

Fares in the $175–$200 range for coach, $399 for a roomette, $679 for a bedroom—with food and comfort included—wouldn’t just cover operating costs, they’d turn the train into a serious competitor. On current modeling, annual revenues around $50 million actually exceed costs, assuming Amtrak pays host freight railroads more but secures priority slots in return. Passengers arrive on time again and the old deficit flips into a margin.

THIS IS WHERE THE PROPOSDED UP-NS MERGER MATTERS.

If regulators are about to hand the keys to one of the nation’s biggest freight systems, they should demand better passenger access as part of the bargain. Higher payments to freight railroads, yes—but tied to performance: on-time slots, improved speeds, and guaranteed paths for trains like the Broadway Limited, the Southwest Chief, or any Amtrak train.

LEVEL THE PLAYING FIELD

If we can afford to shovel billions into airports and interstates, we can afford to level the field for rail. Not as nostalgia, but as policy. A balanced system where the costs are honestly counted shows trains are not the weakling—they’re the bargain. The Broadway Limited failed in 1995 because the deck was stacked. In 2025, with fair rules and smart service, it could thrive.

AMERICANS DESERVE THE CHOICE

Not just drive, not just fly, but ride—comfortably, overnight, city to city. That’s not subsidy. That’s sanity.

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