No. The only way Europe is doing it that way is because all the national train companies exist and are simply not going away politically. So now they make it so

No. The only way Europe is doing it that way is because all the national train companies exist and are simply not going away politically. So now they make it somewhat easier to operate train in the other countries. For the US, it makes sense to have a single main carrier for much of the core system. > For example, I suspect if Amtrak was forced to compete with private firms for track time in the NorthEast corridor you’d see an explosion of service and a dramatic drop in prices. That is most probably wrong. Train operations cost once all the infrastructure is paid for is really not that different government vs private. There is simply not that much to compete on. In fact some of the things that can be improved most, like ticketing and scheduling can be improve more for the costumer if there are less options. Europe has seen very little actual private companies that compete very well and make a significant difference. There are a few things you can differentiate on. Some budget trains just use shit old rolling stock for example. Just finding creative ways of paying people less. The reality is, most of the cost is in setting up infrastructure including signaling, maintaining that, then buying nice trains and training good people. Some private train companies have gotten some investment to buy some nice train sets, but nothing about that is all that amazing. If the government operator had the funds, they could do the same and run the same route. The reality is that competition on fixed rail infrastructure might be worth doing but its not some magical cost cutting tool. Politicians who want to offer their constituents good train service should the the ones lobbying. The reality is, if you have private rail companies, they will mostly lobby for ways to reduce work pay because that where they can compete against Amtrak.