I honestly believe that Anglos tell themselves that passenger rail failed due to Autobahn expansion because the truth completely disproves the myth perpetuated by our supposed savoir Margaret Thatcher that private railroads are better.
The truth is that the incentives for private companies will never be conducive to maintaining long-term infrastructure. They will never have the competition necessary to provide long-term, high-quality service. They will always have the pressure to give dividends to shareholders before they put money into maintaining infrastructure, unless the government steps in and literally forces them to do it. Every dollar spent on improvement is a dollar stolen from shareholders. There is usually no significant competition to them which will drive their customers away, which allows them to do it. This is a significant conflict of interest.
This is why I do not believe Brightline will remain private. The owners of Brightline will pressure the company to send profits back to themselves, at the cost of its infrastructure.
It is nothing but a coincidence that the growth of the Interstate Highway System coincided with the inevitable collapse of American railroads due to decades of deferred maintenance. They never existed in a competitive market, so they never had the incentive to provide sufficient maintenance. Their owners, the shareholders, only care about short term profits. Maintenance harms short term profits while increasing long term profit, which is a conflict of interest for their owners.
We live with the results today. It is not a coincidence that the route by AMTRAK which has the best on-time performance and highest speed is owned by AMTRAK. It is truly basic economics. Just like any other railroad in the world, AMTRAK exists to serve its shareholders. Its shareholders just happen to be American citizens, who are also the vast majority of its users. On the NEC, every dollar spent on improvements is a dollar given to AMTRAK's shareholders. There is no conflict of interest.
It is impossible to take this fact and not come away with the conclusion that the nationalization of railroads is not just a good idea, but short of our government continuing to subsidize private dividends sent to shareholders through subsidies, the nationalization of American railroads is inevitable.
And it would be cheaper for American taxpayers to do it now than wait another 20 years, so we can have consistent maintenance and improvements across the country instead of having a very large bill in a few decades. Continued privatization of natural monopolies is fiscally reckless. It is time to reverse this 150 year old mistake.
If AMTRAK were to own all of the railroads in the country, private freight carriers would still exist. They would not be restricted to tracks they own (except for speed requirements) and could serve the whole country. All freight companies would compete with each other. New freight companies could be formed. This would create a competitive market, which does not exist today. AMTRAK would get revenue from these freight railroads, which it would like every other company in the history of the world would return to its shareholders.
But this is where a very important distinction is found. The AMTRAK shareholders are also its users, the American people. In order to return value to its shareholders, AMTRAK would spend money on improvements, service expansions, and other things which benefit its shareholders. Just like the private railroads. But for AMTRAK's owners, the improvements to service are more valuable than the miniscule amount of money we might receive as a dividend from AMTRAK.
This is why nationalization is the inevitable and desirable future for American rail.
The easy way we can fix this gradually is by passing a law which states that every abandoned railroad, or underused railroad in the country will become AMTRAK property. As AMTRAK property grows we can then rebuild them and build the rail network we need.
The cheaper and faster solution however would be just to issue bonds, buy out all of the trackage in the country via federal law, and then pay off the bonds using the profits AMTRAK will inevitably make as we keep improving the tracks. This is what we should do.
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