A hypothesis about US infrastructure/politics:
Amtrak continues to exist for the same reason the Democratic Party exists—to make the alternatives (respectively: driving/flying, the Republican Party) look reasonable.
(If American governance was sensible, the feds would have dropped about $1Tn on building out a modern, high speed, electrified, grade-separated network no later than 1980 and would now be in a whose-trains-are-faster-and-more-punctual race with China.)
@cstross
There MUST be some kind of "pandemic" at global scale among politicians.😒 #mpd (madpoliticiandesease)
In germany the trainsystem got worse + worse the last decades. Up to something like, a local trainline had a very bad rate of running late very often. So it was decided to - not improve but to give up providing that tranconnection alltogether.
Btw. it's nowadays not uncommon train(connection)s are slowed down because of "traffic jams" (1 track for passengertrains + freighttrains). Wtf!
