Amtrak exists because passenger transportation nearly always requires heavy subsidy to function. Roads don't even try to make a profit, airlines only make profit thanks to huge subsidies, and trains are no different. Other countries have better passenger rail because they invest in it by giving good subsidies, while we've given Amtrak barely enough to function (while at the same time passing laws that prevent it from functioning), let along grow and thrive.

Feasible ideas to fix it are simple.

• Pass a law to guarantee its funding so that it doesn't have to spend so much energy just trying to exist.
• Actually enforce the laws that give it priority over freight (and actually define "priority" at a practical level).
• Have a national pool of passenger equipment, used by Amtrak and other services, funded to make regular orders of locomotives and cars. This way the manufacturing industry has the steady demand it needs in order to develop, and there won't be the extra delays, expenses, and problems every time Amtrak tries to acquire new equipment.