Most European nations, and certainly the ones under discussion, are more democratic than USA. It isn't as though Amtrak is failing in the mission assigned to it

Most European nations, and certainly the ones under discussion, are more democratic than USA. It isn't as though Amtrak is failing in the mission assigned to it by those who control Congress and the long-term bureaucracy. It is only failing to do what most USA residents would like it to do: make USA rail travel better, more convenient, less expensive. I'm not saying that private firms in USA don't suffer the authority of TPTB, but they suffer it much less directly than most state-owned enterprises.