Have you taken Amtrak anywhere recently? The people I know who are most excited about rail travel are people who have never used it outside of a small commute.

Flight is much more convenient and in most instances cheaper.

Intercity rail travel in Australia is slightly faster and significantly more comfortable than a bus, at roughly the same price. Rail travel in the US somehow manages to be slower than Greyhound and more expensive than flying.

I usually avoid flying when equivalent land transport is available and will take less than 8 hours, since it seems like a waste of fuel, but trains are absolutely not exciting when you're sitting in a 40 year old carriage lumbering along uncambered track at the same speed as freight.

I rode the California Zephyr from Chicago to Emeryville in May and I LOVED it. The dining car was a big part of it, because I really enjoyed meeting strangers and having a chat with them. The food was decent for what it was. My roomette was small but it was enough space for me (traveling solo).

Even though we were 13.5 hours late (due to weather outside Omaha), it was a great experience and I'd love to do it again.

The California zephyr is an awesome route, especially between Denver and Emeryville, and as you point out, the dining car was a fun experience that gets you to meet other people from other walks of life. Many seniors and retirees, but also people from the middle of the US (that I'd normally would never meet in California) that talked about their experience living there.

I've been severely delayed on an Amtrak train as well, and IMO that's part of disconnecting. Depending on the train, you might have no Wi-Fi, no cellphone signal, and no control over when you get to your destination. Just need to relax, look at the scenery, and have a drink from the cafe car.

> Flight is much more convenient

And that’s a big deal when people don’t have 4+ weeks of vacation per year.

Even those of us with quite a bit of vacation don’t generally want to spend a week of it riding across thousands of miles for what’s often a premium over business air.

I get the attraction—just took the sleeper from London to Edinburgh—but it just doesn’t make sense for routine travel outside of a few relatively short routes like the northeast.

Or people who never have to rely on it. My wife and I took Amtrak daily for two years between Wilmington and DC. It totally soured me in rail and government.

I take it weekly. A much calmer experience than flying. Get to the station and just walk onto the train.

Rail transport is convenient enough in Europe and many Asian countries. It is just US railways are broken, old and nobody invest into high speed trains. Even the richest state in US failed to build just one track, which was supposed to be the fastest in US, but a snail-slow compared to Japanese or Chinese railways.

> It is just US railways are broken

No. Geography.

American population centres are disparate. Comparisons to Europe, with its tightly-packed industrial centres among centuries-old farms, are silly.

No, they're Quixotically trying to balance Amtrak's finances, which always has been bad. If Amtrak was an airline it would have declared bankruptcy over and over and over again through its history.

This sounds like cyclical political pressure brought about when anti-train politicians are elected. It's virtue signaling. As for the underlying problem: imagine if interstate highways and airports were subjected to local property taxes the way rail infrastructure is.... conversely, imagine if the government built out high-speed rail infrastructure as aggressively as it did high-speed auto and air infrastructure....

Honestly attempting to balance Amtrak’s finances at this time is the wrong choice - there are some serious operational realities that need to be changed before it can run with balanced finances while providing worthwhile service.