I just looked at one of those routes under 40k passengers, the Hoosier State. Wikipedia has an interesting fact, that there's a 2008 law that requires intercit

I just looked at one of those routes under 40k passengers, the Hoosier State. Wikipedia has an interesting fact, that there's a 2008 law that requires intercity routes under 750 miles to have their costs covered by the affected states by 2013. 1. That changes almost every discussion in this thread, and really the economics of Amtrak as a whole. 2. The route brings in about $850k a year but costs $3M. Obviously at this point I need to read up on this law that changed the short route train funding. (Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act) Edit - It looks like it's more about "cost-sharing" of various types. Still, that does change things. Amtrak's budget justification for 2014 is interesting. Particularly the graph showing the decrease in operational defecits. http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/851/32/AmtrakFY14-Budget-Request-Justification,0.pdf http://www.amtrak.com/ccurl/851/32/AmtrakFY14-Budget-Request...