E.B. White has a wonderful essay called The Railroad that describes how the railroads and the government worked together to cripple US passenger rail. It isn't

E.B. White has a wonderful essay called The Railroad that describes how the railroads and the government worked together to cripple US passenger rail. It isn't online, but I found a blog post[1] discussing it. It's also in the collection Essays of E.B. White which I highly recommend to anyone who enjoys perspicuous prose. The gist of the essay is that the railroads incrementally made the passenger experience worse and then as demand declined they used the declining demand to justify further worsening the passenger experience[2]. From the railroads' perspective this was a virtuous positive feedback loop, insofar as it got them out of the relatively low margin passenger business. That then got dumped on Amtrak, which is awful for many reasons, not least of which is their trains are the lowest priority on the tracks they lease, so they are virtually never on time. I imagine Amtrak executives would also love to get out of the passenger transport business too, if they could somehow swing it to keep getting federal money. Anyhow it really is a great essay and I highly recommend reading it since my summary can't do it justice. [1] https://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=91313 https://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=91313 [2] A lesson corporations now apply with disappointing prevalence.