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A comment on End of an American tradition: Amtrak kills the traditional dining car. Parent comment

Re:End of an American tradition: Amtrak kills the traditiona... by gok on Sunday September 22, 2019 @09:21AM (#21041233)
> The solution here would be to have at least four (proven number to avoid oligopolies) private train providers competing on public infrastructure

It's mostly privately owned, but you are basically describing the current state of the current US rail network. The United States has an extremely extensive intercity rail network, with dozens of operators. This was basically all built by the dreaded free market, by the way.

The trouble is that the large railroads are only moving freight, because of the misguided decision to nationalize 20 passenger rail systems under Amtrak. We should have just continued to subsidize passenger service under the private operators.

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Re:End of an American tradition: Amtrak kills the traditiona... by howard941 on Sunday September 22, 2019 @12:24PM (#21042163)
As I remember it subsidies weren't on the table. When Penn Central tanked politics limited the universe of solutions to either nationalization into Amtrak and Conrail, or death.
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Re:End of an American tradition: Amtrak kills the traditiona... by imjustsaying on Sunday September 22, 2019 @11:30AM (#21041796)
>free market

just a nitpick but land ownership-based industries, in which you get a license from the government to own and lease out monopolies on land, are inherently far from free markets. ive always wondered if land ownership could be made to be more free market-like.

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