The thing about long-distance rail is that it offers a lot of value for secondary rural stops. There's no way that flights to, say, Winslow, Arizona will ever

The thing about long-distance rail is that it offers a lot of value for secondary rural stops. There's no way that flights to, say, Winslow, Arizona will ever be economical. You might have someone offer them, but at the cost of enormous subsidy. You can't expect flights running LAX-ORD to stop there, even if there was the infrastructure to handle it. But the railway runs right through the town. You're already running trains. All you need to do is add a 10 minute gap to the schedule for boarding and you've connected that town back to the world. Yes, buses can do it too, but Greyhound doesn't serve a government mandate and will drop money-losing routes (I think there's been a huge fuss over this in Canada recently) Given the political power of rural legislators, Amtrak is an easy sell.