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The Empire Builder is one of those vacation trains. That it actually does something useful between Minnesota and Chicago is basically accidental. Because it's g

• PaulDavisThe1st 6y ago
  there are very few trains anywhere in the world that are profitable if "profit" is determined by the balance of cost vs income. most countries with extensive, speedy and reliable train service measure the "profit" of their systems by considering other measures in addition to these two very simplistic measurements.
  • seanmcdirmid 6y ago
    Many train systems (eg japan) make profit on renting station space, they are actually profitable overall without subsidy, but this is very much like the land grant system used to fund America’s first railroads. Perhaps something like that would work in the USA again
  • presentation 6y ago
    Here in Japan, JR and the other train operators are extremely profitable, since they also act as developers in the land over their stations, so obviously they build and profit from shopping, apartment and office towers on every station. Which makes sense - you didn’t ride the train just to ride a train, you rode it to go somewhere.
  • rsynnott 6y ago
    That's true of intercity trains; metro train systems are sometimes reasonably profitable.
• MH15 6y ago
  There is a thing called a "positive externality". The capitalist class in the United States would do good to remember this when debating the "cost" of public goods.
  • presentation 6y ago
    Capitalists can easily justify building trains, if you just let train operators commercialize the land around stations. When you have a literal conveyor belt of customers getting dumped directly into your shopping centers, office complexes and apartment buildings, you can easily make a pretty penny, like how it works in places like HK and Japan where the train systems are very profitable. I always found it bizarre that subway stations in American cities like NYC usually have literally nothing inside or around them.
  • nickff 6y ago
    The vast majority of the train system in the USA was built with private money, so it's a poor example of capitalist failure. The fact that passenger trains are unviable in the USA is a product of the distances and the airplane.
    • adrianN 6y ago
      Distances in the US are mentioned a lot, but few people actually propose going from NY to SF by train. Moving more people for example in the Northeast Corridor, or in the Bay Area by train is a realistic goal.
    • evgen 6y ago
      The vast majority of the train system was built on public land that was provided to those private builders for free. If they had to pay for the land they never would have built in the first place.
      • bluGill 6y ago
        That public land was worthless at the time. Without the train nobody wanted it, the train made it valuable to the public. Things have changed since 1880 of course. However it isn't fair to evaluate it against modern values.
        • mauvehaus 6y ago
          > That public land was worthless at the time. Without the train nobody wanted it, the train made it valuable to the public. To the white people, perhaps. The indigenous population probably would have rather it stayed that way.